Crime and Punishment

I

He lay like that for a very long time. Occasionally he seemed to wake up, and in those moments noticed that night had come long ago, yet it did not occur to him to get up. Finally he noticed light, as if it were already daytime. He was lying on his back on the sofa, still stupefied from his recent oblivion. Terrible, desperate screams came to him sharply from the street—which, by the way, he heard under his window every night between two and three o'clock. They were what wakened him now. “Ah! So the drunks are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it's past two.” And suddenly he jumped up as if someone had torn him from the sofa. “What! Past two already!” He sat down on the sofa and—remembered everything! Suddenly, in an instant, he remembered everything!

At first he thought he would lose his mind. A terrible chill seized him; but the chill was also caused by a fever that had begun long ago in his sleep. Now, however, he was suddenly stricken with such shivering that his teeth almost flew out and everything in him came loose. He opened the door and began to listen: the whole house was fast asleep. He looked with amazement at himself and everything in the room around him, unable to understand how, when he came back yesterday, he could forget to put the door on the hook, and throw himself on the sofa not only without undressing but even still wearing his hat: it had rolled off and was lying right there on the floor near his pillow. “If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I'm drunk, but...” He dashed to the window. There was light enough, and he hurriedly began looking himself all over, from head to foot, all his clothes: were there any traces? But that was no way to do it. Chilled and shivering, he began taking everything off and examining it all again more thoroughly. He turned everything over and over, to the last thread and scrap, and, not trusting himself, repeated the examination three times. But there seemed to be nothing, no traces, except in one place, where the cuff of his trousers was frayed and hung down like a fringe; there were thick traces of caked blood on this fringe. He seized a big clasp knife and cut the fringe off. There seemed to be nothing else. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken from the old woman's trunk were still in his pockets! Until now he had not even thought of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even remembered about them while he was examining his clothes! What was wrong with him? He rushed at once, took them out, and threw them on the table. Having taken everything out, and even reversed the pockets to make sure nothing was left, he carried the whole pile into a corner. There, in the very corner, low down, the wallpaper was coming away and was torn in one place: he at once began stuffing everything into this hole behind the paper. “It all fits! Everything, out of sight, and the purse, too!” he thought joyfully, straightening up and staring dumbly at the hole in the corner, which bulged more than ever. Suddenly he shook all over with horror: “My God,” he whispered in despair, “what's wrong with me? Do you call that hidden? Is that any way to hide things?”

True, he had not been counting on things; he thought there would only be money and therefore did not prepare a place ahead of time. “But now, why was I rejoicing now? Is that any way to hide things? Reason truly is abandoning me!” Exhausted, he sat down on the sofa and was seized at once by an unbearable shivering. Mechanically, he pulled at his former student's greatcoat, warm but now almost in rags, which was lying next to him on a chair, covered himself with it, and once more sleep and delirium took hold of him. He sank into oblivion.

Not more than five minutes later he jumped up again, and immediately, in a frenzy, rushed again to his clothes. “How could I have fallen asleep again, when nothing has been done! That's it, that's it—the loop under the armhole—I haven't removed it yet! I forgot! Such a thing, such evidence, and I forgot!” He pulled the loop off and quickly began tearing it into pieces, stuffing them under the pillow among his linen. “Pieces of torn cloth will never arouse suspicion; no, probably not, probably not!” he repeated, standing in the middle of the room, and with painfully strained attention he began looking around again, on the floor and everywhere, to see if he had forgotten anything else. The conviction that everything, even memory, even simple reasoning-power was abandoning him, began to torment him unbearably. “What, can it be starting already, can the reckoning come so soon? See, see— there it is!” Indeed, the shreds of fringe he had cut off his trousers were simply lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, for the first comer to see! “What can be wrong with me!” he cried out again, like a lost man.

Here a strange thought came into his head: perhaps all his clothes were covered with blood, perhaps there were stains all over them, and he simply did not see, did not notice them, because his reason was failing, going to pieces...his mind darkening...Suddenly he remembered that there was also blood on the purse. “Bah! So then there must be blood inside the pocket as well, because the purse was still wet when I put it in my pocket!” He instantly turned the pocket out and, sure enough, there were traces, stains on the lining. “So reason hasn't deserted me altogether, so there's still some understanding and memory left, since I suddenly remembered and figured it out myself!” he thought triumphantly, taking a deep and joyful breath. “It was just feverish weakness, a momentary delirium.” And he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his trousers. At that moment a ray of sunlight fell on his left boot: there, where his sock peeped out of the boot, marks seemed to have appeared. He kicked the boot off: “Marks, indeed! The whole toe of the sock is soaked with blood.” So he must have carelessly stepped into that pool... “But what to do with it now? Where am I to put the sock, the fringe, the pocket?”

He raked it all up with his hand and stood in the middle of the room. “Into the stove? But they'll start rummaging in the stove first of all. Burn them? But what with? I don't even have any matches. No, better go out somewhere and throw it all away. Yes, better throw it all away!” he kept repeating, sitting down again on the sofa, “and right now, this minute, without delay! ... ” But instead, his head lay back on the pillow again; the unbearable chill again turned him to ice; again he pulled the greatcoat over him. And for a long time, for several hours, he kept imagining in fits and starts that it was “time to go, now, somewhere, without delay, and throw it all away, out of sight, quickly, quickly!” He tried several times to rise from the sofa, he wanted to get up but no longer could. Finally he was awakened by a loud knocking at the door.

“Open up! Are you alive in there? He just goes on snoring!” Nastasya shouted, banging on the door with her fist. “He just lies there snoring, day in and day out, like a dog! A dog, that's what he is! Open up, will you? It's past ten!”

“Maybe he's not home!” a male voice said.

“Bah! That's the caretaker's voice...What does he want?” He jumped and sat up on the sofa. His heart was pounding so hard that it even hurt.

“And who put it on the hook, then?” Nastasya objected. “See, he's locking himself in now! Are you afraid you'll get stolen, or what? Open the door, noodle, wake up!”

“What do they want? Why the caretaker? It's all been found out. Do I resist, or open? Ah, who gives a . . .”

He bent forward, reached out, and lifted the hook.

His whole room was of a size that made it possible to lift the hook without getting out of bed.

True enough, the caretaker and Nastasya were standing there.

Nastasya looked him over somehow strangely. He gave the caretaker a defiant and desperate look. The latter handed him a gray paper, folded in two and sealed with bottle wax.

“A summons, from the station,” he pronounced, giving him the paper.

“What station?”

“The police, I mean; they're calling you in to the station. What other station...”

“The police! ... What for? . . .”

“How should I know? They want you, so go.” He looked at him intently, glanced around, and turned to leave.

“So you really got sick?” observed Nastasya, who had not taken her eyes off him. The caretaker also turned back for a moment. “He's had a fever since yesterday,” she added.

He made no reply and held the paper in his hands without unsealing it.

“Don't get up, then,” Nastasya continued, moved to pity and seeing that he was lowering his feet from the sofa. “Don't go, if you're sick; there's no fire. What's that in your hand?”

He looked: in his right hand were the cut-off pieces of fringe, the sock, and the scraps of the torn-out pocket. He had slept with them like that. Thinking about it afterwards, he recalled that even half-awakening in his fever, he would clutch them tightly in his hand and fall asleep again that way.

“Look, he's collected some rags and he sleeps with them like a treasure...” And Nastasya dissolved in her morbidly nervous laughter. He instantly shoved it all under the greatcoat and fixed her with a piercing look. Though at the moment he could understand very little in any full sense, he still felt that a man would not be treated that way if he were about to be arrested. “But...the police?”

“Have some tea. Would you like some? I'll bring it; I've got some left . . .”

“No...I'll go, I'll go now,” he muttered, getting to his feet.

“But you won't even make it down the stairs.”

“I'll go . . .”

“Suit yourself.”

She left after the caretaker. He immediately rushed to the light to examine the sock and the fringe. “There are stains, but not very noticeable; it's all dirty, rubbed off, discolored by now. No one would see anything unless they knew beforehand. So Nastasya couldn't have noticed anything from where she was, thank God!” Then he tremblingly unsealed the summons and began to read; he spent a long time reading it and finally understood. It was an ordinary summons from the local police to come to the chief's office that day at half past nine.

“But this is unheard of. I've never had any personal dealings with the police! And why precisely today?” he thought, in tormenting bewilderment. “Lord, get it over with!” He fell on his knees to pray, but burst out laughing instead—not at praying, but at himself. He began hurriedly to dress. “If I'm to perish, let me perish, I don't care! Must put that sock on!” he suddenly thought. “It will rub away even more in the dust and the marks will disappear.” But as soon as he put it on, he immediately pulled it off again with loathing and horror. He pulled it off, but, realizing that he had no other, he picked it up and put it on again—and again burst out laughing. “It's all conventional, all relative, all just a matter of form,” he thought fleetingly, with only a small part of his mind, while his whole body trembled. “There, I put it on! I did finally put it on!” But his laughter immediately gave way to despair. “No, I'm not strong enough . . .” the thought came to him.

His legs were trembling. “From fear,” he muttered to himself. His head was spinning and throbbing from high fever. “It's a ruse! They want to lure me there by a ruse and suddenly throw me off with everything,” he continued to himself, walking out to the stairs. “The worst of it is that I'm almost delirious...I might blurt out some foolishness . . .”

On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving the things as they were, in the hole behind the wallpaper. “And there may be a search right now, while I'm out,” he remembered and stopped. But such despair and, if one may put it so, such cynicism of perdition suddenly possessed him that he waved his hand and went on.

“Only get it over with! . . .”

Again it was unbearably hot out; not a drop of rain had fallen for all those days. Again dust, brick, lime; again the stench from the shops and taverns; again drunks all the time, Finnish peddlers, half-dilapidated cabbies. The sun flashed brightly in his eyes, so that it hurt him to look, and he became quite dizzy—the usual sensation of a man in a fever who suddenly steps outside on a bright, sunny day.

Coming to the turn onto yesterday V street, he peered down it with tormenting anxiety, at that house...and immediately looked away.

“If they ask, maybe I'll tell them,” he thought, approaching the station.

The station was less than a quarter of a mile from his house. It had just been moved into new quarters, on the fourth floor of a different building. He had been in the former quarters once, briefly, but very long ago. Passing under the gateway, he saw a stairway to the right, with a peasant coming down it carrying a book. “Must be a caretaker; so the station must be there,” and on that surmise he started up the stairs. He did not want to ask anyone about anything.

“I'll walk in, fall on my knees, and tell them everything . . .” he thought, going up to the fourth floor.

The stairway was narrow, steep, and all covered with swill. The doors to the kitchens of all the apartments, on all four floors, opened onto the stairs and stood open most of the day. This made it terribly stifling. Up and down the stairs went caretakers with books under their arms, messengers, and various people of both sexes—visitors. The door of the office itself was also wide open. He went in and stopped in the anteroom. Here a number of peasants were standing and waiting. And here, too, it was extremely stifling; moreover, from the newly painted rooms a nauseating odor of fresh, not quite cured paint, made with rancid oil, assailed his nostrils. After waiting a little while, he made the decision to move on, into the next room. All the rooms were tiny and low. A terrible impatience drew him farther and farther. No one took any notice of him. In the second room some scriveners were sitting and writing; they were dressed only slightly better than he was—a strange assortment of people by the look of it. He turned to one of them.

“What do you want?”

He showed him the summons from the office.

“You're a student?” the man asked, glancing at the summons.

“A former student.”

The scrivener looked him over, though without any curiosity. He was a somehow especially disheveled man, with a fixed idea in his eyes.

“I won't get anything out of this one,” Raskolnikov thought, “it's all the same to him.”

“Go in there, to the clerk,” said the scrivener, jabbing his finger forward, pointing to the very last room.

He entered that room (the fourth one down); it was small and chock-full of the public—people whose clothes were somewhat cleaner than in the other rooms. Among the visitors were two ladies. One of them was in mourning, humbly dressed, and sat across the table from the clerk, writing something to his dictation. The other, an extremely plump and conspicuous woman, with reddish-purple blotches, all too magnificently dressed, and with a brooch the size of a saucer on her bosom, stood to one side waiting for something. Raskolnikov handed his summons to the clerk. He gave it a passing glance, said “Wait,” and continued to occupy himself with the mourning lady.

He breathed more freely. “Must be for something else!” Gradually he began to take heart; with all his might he exhorted himself to take heart and pull himself together.

“Some foolishness, some most trifling indiscretion, and I can give myself away completely! Hm...too bad it's so airless here,” he added, “stifling...My head is spinning even more...my mind, too . . .”

He felt a terrible disorder within himself. He was afraid of losing his control. He tried to bang on to something, to think at least of something, some completely unrelated thing, but could not manage to do it. The clerk, however, interested him greatly: he kept hoping to read something in his face, to pry into him. This was a very young man, about twenty-two years old, with a dark and mobile physiognomy which looked older than its years, fashionably and foppishly dressed, his hair parted behind, all combed and pomaded, with many rings and signet-rings on his white, brush-scrubbed fingers, and gold chains on his waistcoat. He even spoke a few words of French, and quite satisfactorily, with a foreigner who was there.

“Why don't you sit down, Louisa Ivanovna,” he said in passing to the bedizened reddish-purple lady, who remained standing as if she did not dare to sit down, though there was a chair beside her.

“Ich danke,”^[41] she said, and quietly, with a silken rustling, lowered herself onto the chair. Her light-blue dress with white lace trimming expanded around the chair like a balloon and filled almost half the office. There was a reek of perfume. But the lady was obviously abashed that she was taking up half the space and that she reeked so much of perfume, and her smile, though cowardly and insolent at once, was also obviously uneasy.

The mourning lady finally finished and started to get up. Suddenly there was some noise and an officer came in, quite dashingly and somehow with a special swing of the shoulders at each step, tossed his cockaded cap on the table, and sat himself down in an armchair. The magnificent lady simply leaped from her seat as soon as she saw him, and began curtsying to him with some special sort of rapture; but the officer did not pay the slightest attention to her, and she now did not dare to sit down again in his presence. He was a lieutenant, the police chief's assistant, with reddish moustaches sticking out horizontally on both sides, and with extremely small features, which, incidentally, expressed nothing in particular apart from a certain insolence. He gave a sidelong and somewhat indignant glance at Raskolnikov: his costume really was too wretched, and yet, despite such humiliation, his bearing was not in keeping with his costume; Raskolnikov, from lack of prudence, looked at him too directly and steadily, so that he even became offended.

“What do you want?” he shouted, probably surprised that such a ragamuffin did not even think of effacing himself before the lightning of his gaze.

“I was summoned...by a notice . . .” Raskolnikov managed to reply.

“It's that case to do with the recovery of money, from him, the student, “ the clerk spoke hurriedly, tearing himself away from his papers. “Here, sir!” and he flipped the register over for Raskolnikov, pointing to a place in it. “Read this!”

“Money? What money?” Raskolnikov thought. “But...then it surely can't be that!” And he gave a joyful start. He suddenly felt terribly, inexpressibly light. Everything fell from his shoulders.

“And what time does it say you should come, my very dear sir?” the lieutenant shouted, getting more and more insulted for some unknown reason. “It says you should come at nine, and it's already past eleven!”

“It was brought to me only a quarter of an hour ago,” Raskolnikov replied loudly, over his shoulder, becoming suddenly and unexpectedly angry himself, and even finding a certain pleasure in it. “It's enough that I came at all, sick with fever as I am.”

“Kindly do not shout!”

“I'm not shouting, I'm speaking quite evenly; it's you who are shouting at me; but I am a student and I will not allow anyone to shout at me.”

The assistant flared up so violently that for the first moment he was even unable to say anything articulate, and only some sort of spluttering flew out of his mouth. He leaped from his seat.

“Kindly be still! You are in an official place. No r-r-rudeness, sir!”

“But you, too, are in an official place,” Raskolnikov cried, “and you are not only shouting but also smoking a cigarette, and thereby being disrespectful towards all of us!” Having said this, Raskolnikov felt an inexpressible delight.

The clerk was looking at them with a smile. The fiery lieutenant was visibly taken aback.

“That is none of your business, sir!” he finally yelled, in a somehow unnaturally loud voice. “You will kindly give the response that is demanded of you. Show him, Alexander Grigorievich. There are complaints against you! You owe money! Just look at this bright young falcon!”

But Raskolnikov was no longer listening and greedily took hold of the paper, hastening to find the answer. He read it over once, then twice, and did not understand.

“What is this?” he asked the clerk.

“It is a request for the recovery of money owed by you on a promissory note. You must either pay it, including all expenses, fines, and so forth, or give a written response stating when you will be able to pay, and at the same time sign an obligation not to leave the capital before payment is made and not to sell or conceal your property. And the creditor is free to sell your property, and to take action against you in accordance with the law.”

“But I...don't owe anyone anything!”

“That is not our business. Our office has received for recovery a promissory note in the amount of one hundred and fifteen roubles, overdue and legally protested, which you gave to the widow of the collegiate assessor Zarnitsyn nine months ago, and which was given by her in payment to the court councillor Chebarov, for which reason we have invited you here to respond.”

“But she's my landlady!”

“So what if she is your landlady?”

The clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of regret and, at the same time, of a certain triumph, as at a novice who has just come under fire for the first time: “Well,” he seemed to be saying, “how do you feel now?” But what did he care, what did he care now about a promissory note and its recovery! Was it worth the least anxiety now, even the least attention? He stood, read, listened, replied, even asked questions himself, but all mechanically. The triumph of self-preservation, the rescue from overwhelming danger—that was what filled his entire being at the moment, with no foresight, no analysis, no future riddling and unriddling, no doubts or questions. It was a moment of complete, spontaneous, purely animal joy. But at that same moment something like thunder and lightning broke out in the office. The lieutenant, still all shaken by disrespect, all aflame, and apparently wishing to shore up his wounded pride, fell with all his thunderbolts upon the unfortunate “magnificent lady,” who, ever since he walked in, had been looking at him with the most stupid smile.

“And you, you so-and-so,” he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs (the mourning lady had already gone out), “what went on at your place last night? Eh? More of your disgrace and debauchery, for the whole street to hear? More fighting and drinking? Are you longing for the penitentiary? Didn't I tell you, didn't I warn you ten times that you wouldn't get away the eleventh? And you do it again and again, you so-and-so, you!”

The paper simply dropped from Raskolnikov's hands, and he gazed wildly at the magnificent lady who had just been given such an unceremonious trimming; however, he quickly realized what it was all about and even began to enjoy the whole story very much. He listened with pleasure, so much so that he even wanted to laugh, laugh, laugh...All his nerves were twitching.

“Ilya Petrovich!” the clerk began solicitously, but stopped and bided his time, because the boiling lieutenant could be held back only by main force—he knew it from his own experience.

As for the magnificent lady, at first the thunder and lightning set her all atremble; but, strangely, the stronger and more numerous the curses, the more amiable she looked, and the more charming was the smile she turned on the terrible lieutenant. She kept shifting her feet and curtsying all the time, waiting impatiently until she got the chance to put a word in, and she finally did get it.

“I did not haff any noise und fighting, Mr. Kapitàn,” she suddenly started to patter, like peas spilling in a pan, in brisk Russian, but with a strong German accent, “und it vas not, it vas not any shcandal, but he came trunken, und I vill tell it all, Mr. Kapitàn, und it is not my fault... mine is a noble house, Mr. Kapitàn, und a noble behavior, Mr. Kapitàn, und I alvays, alvays didn't vant any shcandal. But he is coming completely trunken, und then again is asking for three more pottles, und then he raised one of his foots und begint to play the fortepian mit his foot, und this is not nice at all in a noble house, und he ganz broke the fortepian, und he had no maniers, no maniers at all, und I tell him so. Und he took the pottle und begint to push everyone from behind mit the pottle. Und here I run und call the caretaker, und Karl comes, und he bitten Karl in the eye, und he hitten Henriette in the eye, too, und me he shlapped five times on the cheek. Und this is so indelicate in a noble house, Mr. Kapitân, und I am yelling. Und he opened the vindow on the canal und shtarted sqvealing out the vindow like a little pig; und it is a disgrace. Und mit all his might he is sqvealing out the vindow to the street like a little pig; und vat a disgrace it is! Fui, fui, fui! Und Karl pulled him avay from the vindow by his frock coat, und here, it's true, Mr. Kapitân, he tore sein Rock. Und then he shouted that Mann muss pay him fifteen roubles fine. Und I myself, Mr. Kapitân, paid him five roubles for sein Rock. Und this is not a noble guest, Mr. Kapitàn, und he did all sorts of shcandal. I vill gedruckt a big satire on you, he says, because I can write anything about you in all the newspapers.”

“So he's one of those writers?”

“Yes, Mr. Kapitân, und he is such an unnoble guest, Mr. Kapitân, ven in a noble house...”

“So, so, so! Enough! I've told you before, I've told you over and over . . .”

“Ilya Petrovich!” the clerk said again, significantly. The lieutenant quickly glanced at him; the clerk nodded slightly.

“... So, my most esteemed Laviza Ivanovna, here is my final word for you, and, believe me, it is final,” the lieutenant continued. “If there is one more scandal in your noble house, I will send you in person to zugunder,^[42] to use a high-class expression. Do you hear me? So a writer, a littérateur, took five roubles for his coattail in a 'noble house'? That's writers for you!” He cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. “There was a similar story in a tavern two days ago: one of them had dinner and then didn't want to pay for it—'or else I'll put you into a satire,' he said. Another one, on a steamboat last week, denounced a respectable family, a state councillor, his wife and daughter, in the foulest language. And another got himself kicked out of a pastry shop the other day. That's how they are, these writers, littérateurs, students, town criers...pah! Off with you! I'll stop by your place myself...so watch out! Do you hear?”

Louisa Ivanovna, with hurried amiability, began curtsying in all directions, and backed towards the door still curtsying; but in the doorway she bumped backwards into a fine officer with a fresh, open face and magnificent, bushy blond side-whiskers. This was the chief of police, Nikodim Fomich himself. Louisa Ivanovna hastily curtsied almost to the floor and, skipping with quick, small steps, flew out of the office.

“More blasts, more thunder and lightning, tornadoes, hurricanes!” Nikodim Fomich pleasantly and amicably addressed Ilya Petrovich. “His heart has been stirred up again, he's boiling again! I heard it way downstairs.”

“‘Twas nothing!” Ilya Petrovich uttered with gentlemanly nonchalance (not even “nothing” but somehow “ 'Twa-as na-a-awthing”), going to another table with some papers, and jerking his shoulders spectacularly with each step—a step here, a shoulder there. “Look, sir, if you please: mister writer here, or student, rather—a former one, that is—owes money and doesn't pay it, has given out all sorts of promissory notes, won't vacate his apartment, there are constant complaints about him, and he is so good as to start an altercation with me for smoking a cigarette in his presence! He's s-s-scoundrelly enough himself, and look at him, if you please, sir: here he is in all his attractiveness!”

“Come, come, my friend, poverty is no vice! We know you're like gunpowder, unable to bear an offense. You must have gotten offended with him for some reason and couldn't help saying something,” Nikodim Fomich went on, amiably addressing Raskolnikov, “but you mustn't do that: he is a mo-o-st no-o-oble man, I must tell you, but gunpowder, gunpowder! He flares up, he boils up, he burns up—and that's it! All gone! And what's left is his heart of gold! In our regiment he was known as 'Lieutenant Gunpowder'...”

“And what a r-r-regiment it was!” exclaimed Ilya Petrovich, quite content to be so pleasantly tickled, but still sulking.

Raskolnikov suddenly wanted to say something extraordinarily pleasant to them all.

“I beg your pardon, Captain,” he began quite casually, suddenly addressing Nikodim Fomich, “but you must also understand my position...I am even ready to ask his forgiveness if for my part I was in any way disrespectful. I am a poor and sick student, weighed down” (that was how he said it: weighed down ) “by poverty. I am a former student because I cannot support myself now, but I will be getting some money...I have a mother and a sister in ------y province . . .

They will send it, and I...will pay. My landlady is a kind woman, but she is so angry because I lost my lessons and haven't paid her for four months that she won't even send up my dinner...And I absolutely do not understand what this promissory note is! She's now demanding that I pay, but how can I? Judge for yourself! . . .”

“But that is not our business . . .” the clerk observed again.

“Allow me, allow me, I completely agree with you, but allow me to explain,” Raskolnikov picked up again, still addressing himself not to the clerk but to Nikodim Fomich, but trying as hard as he could to address Ilya Petrovich as well, though he stubbornly pretended to be burrowing in his papers and contemptuously ignored him, “allow me, too, for my part, to explain that I have been living with her for about three years now, ever since I came from the province, and earlier...earlier... but then, why shouldn't I confess it, at the very beginning I made a promise that I would marry her daughter, a verbal promise, a completely free one...This girl was...however, I even liked her...though I wasn't in love...youth, in a word—that is, I mean to say that the landlady gave me considerable credit then, and my way of life was somewhat...I was quite thoughtless . . .”

“Such intimacies are hardly required of you, my dear sir, and we have no time for them,” Ilya Petrovich interrupted rudely and triumphantly, but Raskolnikov hotly cut him off, though it had suddenly become very difficult for him to speak.

“But allow me, do allow me to tell everything, more or less...how things went and...in my turn...though it's unnecessary, I agree— but a year ago this girl died of typhus, and I stayed on as a tenant like before, and when the landlady moved to her present apartment, she told me...and in a friendly way...that she had complete trust in me and all...but wouldn't I like to give her this promissory note for a hundred and fifteen roubles, which was the total amount I owed her. Allow me, sir: she precisely said that once I'd given her this paper, she would let me have as much more credit as I wanted, and that she, for her part, would never, ever—these were her own words—make use of this paper before I myself paid her...And now, when I've lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she applies for recovery...What can I say?”

“All these touching details, my dear sir, are of no concern to us,” Ilya Petrovich insolently cut in. “You must make a response and a commitment, and as for your happening to be in love, and all these other tragic points, we could not care less about them.”

“Now that's...cruel of you...really . . .” Nikodim Fomich muttered, and he, too, sat down at the table and started signing things. He felt somehow ashamed.

“Write,” the clerk said to Raskolnikov.

“Write what?” he asked, somehow with particular rudeness.

“I'll dictate to you.”

Raskolnikov fancied that after his confession the clerk had become more casual and contemptuous with him, but—strangely—he suddenly felt decidedly indifferent to anyone's possible opinion, and this change occurred somehow in a moment, an instant. If he had only cared to reflect a little, he would of course have been surprised that he could have spoken with them as he had a minute before, and even thrust his feelings upon them. And where had these feelings come from? On the contrary, if the room were now suddenly filled not with policemen but with his foremost friends, even then, he thought, he would be unable to find a single human word for them, so empty had his heart suddenly become. A dark sensation of tormenting, infinite solitude and estrangement suddenly rose to consciousness in his soul. It was not the abjectness of his heart's outpourings before Ilya Petrovich, nor the abjectness of the lieutenant's triumph over him, that suddenly so overturned his heart. Oh, what did he care now about his own meanness, about all these vanities, lieutenants, German women, proceedings, offices, and so on and so forth! Even if he had been sentenced to be burned at that moment, he would not have stirred, and would probably not have listened very attentively to the sentence. What was taking place in him was totally unfamiliar, new, sudden, never before experienced. Not that he understood it, but he sensed clearly, with all the power of sensation, that it was no longer possible for him to address these people in the police station, not only with heartfelt effusions, as he had just done, but in any way at all, and had they been his own brothers and sisters, and not police lieutenants, there would still have been no point in his addressing them, in whatever circumstances of life. Never until that minute had he experienced such a strange and terrible sensation. And most tormenting of all was that it was more a sensation than an awareness, an idea; a spontaneous sensation, the most tormenting of any he had yet experienced in his life.

The clerk began dictating to him the customary formal response for such occasions—that is, I cannot pay, I promise to pay by such-and-such a date (some day), I will not leave town, I will neither sell nor give away my property, and so on.

“You can't even write, you're barely able to hold the pen,” the clerk observed, studying Raskolnikov with curiosity. “Are you sick?”

“Yes...dizzy...go on!”

“That's all. Sign it.”

The clerk took the paper from him and busied himself with others.

Raskolnikov gave back the pen, but instead of getting up and leaving, he put both elbows on the table and pressed his head with his hands. It was as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange thought suddenly came to him: to get up now, go over to Nikodim Fomich, and tell him all about yesterday, down to the last detail, then go to his apartment with them and show them the things in the corner, in the hole. The urge was so strong that he had already risen from his seat to carry it out. “Shouldn't I at least think it over for a moment?” raced through his head. “No, better do it without thinking, just to get it off my back!” But suddenly he stopped, rooted to the spot: Nikodim Fomich was talking heatedly with Ilya Petrovich, and he caught some of the words.

“It's impossible; they'll both be released! First of all, everything's against it; just consider, why would they call the caretaker if it was their doing? To give themselves away, or what? Out of cunning? No, that would be much too cunning! And, finally, both caretakers and the tradeswoman saw the student Pestryakov just by the gate, the very moment he came in: he was walking with three friends and parted with them just by the gate, and he asked the caretakers about lodgings while his friends were still with him. Now, would such a man ask about lodgings if he had come there with such an intention? As for Koch, he spent half an hour with the silversmith downstairs before he went to the old woman's, and left him to go upstairs at exactly a quarter to eight. Think, now . . .”

“But, excuse me, how did they end up with this contradiction: they assure us that they knocked and the door was locked, but when they came back with the caretaker three minutes later, it turned out that the door was not locked.”

“That's just it: the murderer must have been there inside and put the door on the hook; and he would certainly have been caught there if Koch hadn't been fool enough to go for the caretaker himself. And it was precisely during that interval that he managed to get down the stairs and somehow slip past them. Koch keeps crossing himself with both hands: 'If I'd stayed there,' he says, 'he would have jumped out and killed me with an axe.' He wants to have a Russian molieben served, heh, heh! . . .”^[43]

“And no one even saw the murderer?”

“But how could they, really? That house is like Noah's ark,” observed the clerk, who was listening in from where he sat.

“The case is clear, quite clear!” Nikodim Fomich repeated hotly.

“No, the case is very unclear,” Ilya Petrovich clinched.

Raskolnikov picked up his hat and made for the door, but he did not reach it . . .

When he came to his senses he saw that he was sitting in a chair, that some man was supporting him from the right, that another man was standing on his left holding a yellow glass filled with yellow water, and that Nikodim Fomich was standing in front of him, looking at him intently. He got up from the chair.

“What, are you ill?” Nikodim Fomich asked rather curtly.

“He could hardly hold the pen to sign his name,” the clerk observed, sitting down in his place and going back to his papers.

“And how long have you been ill?” Ilya Petrovich called out from where he sat, also sorting through his papers. He, too, had of course looked at the sick man when he fainted, but stepped away at once when he came to.

“Since yesterday . . .” Raskolnikov muttered in reply.

“And did you go out yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Though you were ill?”

“Though I was ill.”

“At what time?”

“After seven in the evening.”

“And where, may I ask?”

“Down the street.”

“Plain and simple.”

Raskolnikov answered curtly, abruptly; he was white as a sheet and refused to lower his dark, feverish eyes before the gaze of Ilya Petrovich.

“He can barely stand on his feet, and you . . .” Nikodim Fomich began.

“Not-at-all!” Ilya Petrovich pronounced somehow specially. Nikodim Fomich was about to add something, but, having glanced at the clerk, who was also looking very intently at him, he fell silent. Everyone suddenly fell silent. It was strange.

“Very well, sir,” Ilya Petrovich concluded, “we are not keeping you.”

Raskolnikov walked out. After his exit an animated conversation began, which he could still hear, the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomich rising above the others...In the street he recovered completely.

“A search, a search, an immediate search!” he repeated to himself, hurrying to get home. “The villains! They suspect me!” His former fear again came over him entirely, from head to foot.

II

“And what if there has already been a search? What if I find them there now?”

But here was his room. Nothing and nobody; no one had been there. Even Nastasya had not touched anything. But, Lord! How could he have left all those things in that hole?

He rushed to the corner, thrust his hand under the wallpaper, and began pulling the things out and loading them into his pockets. There turned out to be eight articles altogether: two small boxes with earrings or something of the sort—he did not look closely; then four small morocco cases. One chain was simply wrapped in newspaper. There was something else in newspaper, apparently a medal.

He stowed them all in different pockets of his coat and in the remaining right pocket of his trousers, trying to make them less conspicuous. He took the purse as well, together with the things. Then he went out of the room, this time leaving the door wide open.

He walked quickly and firmly, and though he felt broken all over, his consciousness remained with him. He was afraid of being followed, afraid that within half an hour, within a quarter of an hour, instructions would be issued to keep a watch on him; so meanwhile he had at all costs to cover his traces. He had to manage it while he still had at least some strength and some judgment...But where to go?

He had long since decided: “Throw everything into the canal, and the water will wash away all traces, and that will be the end of it.” He had decided so during the night, in delirium, in those moments when, as he remembered, he had made several attempts to rise up and go “quickly, quickly, and throw it all away.” But throwing it away turned out to be very difficult.

He wandered along the embankment of the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour, perhaps longer, and several times cast an eye at the landing steps as he passed by them. But he could not even think of carrying out his intention: either rafts were standing there and washerwomen were doing laundry on them, or boats were moored there, and people were simply swarming all over the place; besides, he could be seen, he could be noticed from anywhere along the embankments, from all sides: a man coming down on purpose, stopping and throwing something into the water, would look suspicious. And what if the cases floated instead of sinking? Yes, of course they would float. Everyone would see them. Indeed, they all kept staring at him as it was, looking him over, as if he were their only concern. “Why is that? Or does it just seem so to me?” he thought.

Finally it occurred to him that it might be better to go somewhere along the Neva. There were fewer people, it would not be so conspicuous, in any case it was more convenient, and, above all—it was farther away from those parts. And suddenly he was amazed: how could he have wandered for a whole half hour in anguish and anxiety, and in dangerous places, and not thought of it before! And he had killed a whole half hour over such a foolhardy matter simply because he had decided on it in his sleep, in delirium! He was becoming extremely distracted and forgetful, and he knew it. He decidedly had to hurry!

He walked along the V------y Prospect in the direction of the Neva;

but on the way another thought suddenly came to him: “Why the Neva? Why in the water? Wouldn't it be better to go somewhere very far away, even to the Islands again, and there somewhere, in some solitary place, in the woods, under a bush, to bury it all, and maybe also make note of the tree?” And though he felt he could not consider it all clearly and soberly at that moment, it seemed a flawless idea.

But he was not destined to get to the Islands either; something else happened: coming out from the V------y Prospect to the square, he saw on his left the entrance to a courtyard, surrounded by completely blank walls. To the right, immediately inside the gateway, the blank, un-whitewashed wall of the four-storied house next door stretched back deep into the yard. To the left, parallel to the blind wall, and also just beyond the gate, a wooden fence extended about twenty paces into the yard and only then broke to the left. This was a fenced-off, out-of-the-way spot where some materials were lying about. Deeper into the yard, from behind the fence, the angle of a low, sooty stone shed peeked out—evidently part of some workshop. It was probably a carriage-maker's or a metalworker's shop, or something of the sort; everything, starting almost from the gate, was covered with black coal dust. “Why not abandon it here and go away!” suddenly crossed his mind. Not noticing anyone in the yard, he stepped through the gate and saw, just inside, a trough set up next to the fence (such as one often finds in places where there are many factory workers, teamsters, coachmen, and so on), and written in chalk on the fence above the trough was the inevitable witticism in such circumstances: “no loidering hear.”^[44]That was already a good thing; it meant there would be nothing suspicious about his going in and loitering. “Just dump it all in a heap somewhere, and get out!”

Having looked around one more time, he had already put his hand into his pocket when he suddenly noticed, up next to the outside wall, between the gate and the trough, where the whole space was a little more than two feet wide, a big, unhewn stone weighing perhaps fifty pounds, leaning right against the stone street-wall. The street, the sidewalk, were just beyond this wall; one could hear passers-by, always numerous there, shuttling back and forth; yet he could not be seen from outside the gate, but only if someone were to come in from the street, which, however, might very well happen, and therefore he had to hurry.

He bent down, gripped the top of the stone firmly with both hands, gathered all his strength, and rolled it over. The stone had made a shallow depression; he at once began throwing all the contents of his pockets into it. The purse ended up on top, and there was still some room in the depression. Then he took hold of the stone again, and with one heave rolled it back onto its former side, so that it ended up exactly in its former place, only it seemed perhaps a little, just a tiny bit, higher. But he raked up some dirt and tamped it around the edges with his foot. Nothing could be noticed.

He went out and headed for the square. Again, as that morning in the office, a strong, almost unbearable joy possessed him for a moment. “The traces are covered! And who, who would think of looking under that stone? It may have been lying there since the house was built, and may go on lying there as long again. And even if they find it, who will think of me? It's finished! No evidence!” And he laughed. Yes, he remembered afterwards that he laughed a rapid, nervous, inaudible, drawn-out laugh, and went on laughing all the while he was crossing the square. But when he turned down ------ Boulevard, where he had met that girl two days before, his laughter suddenly went away. Other thoughts started creeping into his head. He also suddenly fancied that it was terribly loathsome now for him to pass that bench where he had sat and pondered then, after the girl left, and that it would also be terribly difficult for him to meet that moustached officer again, the one to whom he had given the twenty kopecks: “Devil take him!”

He walked on, looking distractedly and spitefully about him. All his thoughts were now circling around some one main point, and he himself felt that it was indeed the main point, and that now, precisely now, he was left face-to-face with this main point—even for the first time after those two months.

“Ah, devil take it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of inexhaustible spite. “So, if it's begun, it's begun—to hell with her, and with the new life! Lord, how stupid it is! ... And all the lying and groveling I produced today! How repulsively I fawned and flirted today with that nasty Ilya Petrovich! All, but that's nonsense, too! I spit on them, and on everyone, and on my own fawning and flirting! That's not it! Not it at all! . . .”

Suddenly he stopped. A new, totally unexpected, and extremely simple question all at once bewildered and bitterly astonished him:

“If indeed this whole thing was done consciously and not foolheadedly, if you indeed had a definite and firm objective, then how is it that so far you have not even looked into the purse and do not know what you've actually gained, or for what you accepted all these torments and started out on such a mean, nasty, vile business? Weren't you going to throw it into the water just now, this purse, along with all the other things which you also haven't seen yet?...How is that?”

Yes, it was true; it was all true. However, he had even known it before, and it was by no means a new question for him; and when the decision had been made that night to throw it all into the water, it had been made without any hesitation or objection, but in such a way as if it had to be so, as if it even could not be otherwise...Yes, he knew all that, and he remembered it all; it had been just about decided yesterday, at the very moment when he was sitting over the trunk, pulling the cases out of it...Yes, it was true!

“It's because I'm very sick,” he finally decided glumly. “I've tormented and tortured myself, without knowing myself what I'm doing...And yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and all this time I've been torturing myself...I'll get well and...stop torturing myself...And what if I never get well? Lord! I'm so tired of it all! . . .” He walked on without stopping. He longed terribly for some distraction, but he did not know what to do or what to undertake. One new, insurmountable sensation was gaining possession of him almost minute by minute: it was a certain boundless, almost physical loathing for everything he met or saw around him, an obstinate, spiteful, hate-filled loathing. All the people he met were repulsive to him—their faces, their walk, their movements were repulsive. If anyone had spoken to him, he would probably just have spat at him, bitten him . . .

When he walked out to the embankment of the Little Neva, on Vasilievsky Island, near the bridge, he suddenly stopped. “Here's where he lives, in that house,” he thought. “Well, well, I seem to have brought myself to Razumikhin! The same story all over again...It's very curious, however: did I mean to come, or did I simply walk and end up here? Makes no difference; I said...two days ago...that I'd go and see him the day after that; well, so I'll go! As if I couldn't go now . . .”

He went up to Razumikhin's on the fifth floor.

He was at home, in his closet, busy writing at the moment, and opened the door himself. They had not seen each other for about four months. Razumikhin stood there in a dressing gown worn to tatters, with shoes on his bare feet, disheveled, unshaved, and unwashed. His face showed surprise.

“What's with you?” he cried, looking his entering friend over from head to foot; then he paused and whistled.

“It's that bad, is it? You've even outdone me, brother,” he added, looking at Raskolnikov's rags. “Sit down, you must be tired!” And when he collapsed onto the oilcloth Turkish sofa, which was even worse than his own, Razumikhin suddenly noticed that his guest was ill.

“But you're seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his pulse; Raskolnikov pulled his hand back.

“Don't,” he said. “I've come...the thing is, I have no lessons...I wanted...however, I don't need any lessons...”

“You know what? You're raving!” observed Razumikhin, who was watching him closely.

“No, I'm not raving.” Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. It had not occurred to him as he was going upstairs to Razumikhin's that he would therefore have to come face-to-face with him. But now, in an instant, he realized from his earlier experience that he was least of all disposed at that moment to come face-to-face with anyone in the whole world, whoever it might be. All his bile rose up in him. He nearly choked with anger at himself as soon as he crossed Razumikhin's threshold.

“Good-bye!” he said suddenly, and went to the door.

“But wait, wait, you crank!”

“Don't! . . .” the latter repeated, pulling his hand back again.

“And why the devil did you come, then! Are you cracked or something? I'm...almost hurt. I won't let you go like that.”

“Well, listen: I came to you because aside from you I don't know anyone who would help...to start...because you're kinder than the rest of them—smarter, that is—and you're able to talk about things...But now I see that I need nothing, do you hear, absolutely nothing...no favors, no concern from anyone...I myself...alone...And enough! Let me be, all of you!”

“But wait a minute, you chimney sweep! This is completely crazy! You can do as you like for all I care. You see, I don't have any lessons either, and to hell with it, but there's a bookseller in the flea market named Cherubimov, and he's a sort of lesson in himself. I wouldn't exchange him now for five merchants' lessons. He does a bit of publishing, brings out little books on natural science—and how they sell! The titles alone are priceless! Now, you've always maintained that I'm stupid: by God, brother, there are some that are stupider! And lately he's also hooked on to the trend; he doesn't know beans about it, but, well, naturally I encourage him. Now, here we have two sheets and a bit more of German text—the stupidest sort of charlatanism, in my opinion; in short, it examines whether woman is or is not a human being. Well, and naturally it solemnly establishes that she is a human being. Cherubimov is preparing it in line with the woman question; I'm doing the translating; he'll stretch these two and a half sheets to six, we'll concoct a nice, frilly title half a page long, and peddle it for fifty kopecks. It'll do! I'll get six roubles a sheet for the translation, making it fifteen roubles in all, and I took six roubles in advance. That done, we'll start translating something about whales; then we've marked out some of the dullest gossip from the second part of the Confessions for translation—somebody told Cherubimov that Rousseau is supposedly a Radishchev in his own way.^[45] Naturally, I don't contradict—devil take him! So, do you want to translate the second sheet of Is Woman a Human Being?^[46] If you do, take the text right now, take some pens and paper—it's all supplied—and take three roubles, because I took the advance for the whole translation, first and second sheets, so three roubles would be exactly your share. When you finish the sheet, you'll get another three roubles. And one more thing, please don't regard this as some sort of favor on my part. On the contrary, the moment you walked in, I already saw how you were going to be of use to me. First of all, my spelling is poor, and second, my German just goes kaput sometimes, so that I have to make things up on my own instead, my only consolation being that it comes out even better. But who knows, maybe it comes out worse instead of better...Are you going to take it or not?”

Raskolnikov silently took the German pages of the article, took the three roubles, and walked out without saying a word. Razumikhin gazed after him in astonishment. But, having gone as far as the First Line,^[47] Raskolnikov suddenly turned back, went up to Razumikhin's again, placed both the German pages and the three roubles on the table, and again walked out without saying a word.

“Have you got brain fever or what?” Razumikhin bellowed, finally enraged. “What is this farce you're playing? You've even got me all screwed up...Ah, the devil, what did you come for, then?”

“I don't want...translations . . .” Raskolnikov muttered, already going down the stairs.

“What the devil do you want?” Razumikhin shouted from above. The other silently went on down.

“Hey! Where are you living?”

There was no answer.

“Ah, the devil! . . .”

But Raskolnikov was already outside. On the Nikolaevsky Bridge he was once more brought fully back to his senses, owing to an incident that was most unpleasant for him. He was stoutly lashed on the back with a whip by the driver of a carriage, for almost falling under the horses' hoofs even after the driver had shouted to him three or four times. The stroke of the whip made him so angry that, as he jumped to the railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle of the bridge, which is for driving, not for walking), he snarled and bared his teeth spitefully. Of course, there was laughter around him.

“He had it coming!”

“Some kind of scofflaw!”

“You know, they pretend they're drunk and get under the wheels on purpose, and then you have to answer for it.”

“They live from it, my good sir, they live from it . . .”

But at that moment, as he stood by the railing rubbing his back and still senselessly and spitefully watching the carriage drive away, he suddenly felt someone put money in his hand. He looked; it was an elderly merchant's wife in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl beside her in a little hat and holding a green parasol, probably her daughter. “Take it, my dear, in Christ's name.” He took it, and they went on. It was a twenty-kopeck piece. From his clothes and appearance, they could well have taken him for a beggar, for a real collector of half kopecks in the street, and the offering of so much as twenty kopecks he doubtless owed to the stroke of the whip's having moved them to pity.

He clutched the twenty kopecks in his hand, walked about ten steps, and turned his face to the Neva, in the direction of the palace.^[48] There was not the least cloud in the sky, and the water was almost blue, which rarely happens with the Neva. The dome of the cathedral, which is not outlined so well from any other spot as when looked at from here, on the bridge, about twenty paces from the chapel, was simply shining, and through the clear air one could even make out each of its ornaments distinctly.^[49] The pain from the whip subsided, and Raskolnikov forgot about the blow; one troublesome and not entirely clear thought now occupied him exclusively. He stood and looked long and intently into the distance; this place was especially familiar to him. While he was attending the university, he often used to stop, mostly on his way home, at precisely this spot (he had done it perhaps a hundred times), and gaze intently at the indeed splendid panorama, and to be surprised almost every time by a certain unclear and unresolved impression. An inexplicable chill always breathed on him from this splendid panorama; for him the magnificent picture was filled with a mute and deaf spirit...He marveled each time at this gloomy and mysterious impression, and, mistrusting himself, put off the unriddling of it to some future time. Now suddenly he abruptly recalled these former questions and perplexities, and it seemed no accident to him that he should recall them now. The fact alone that he had stopped at the same spot as before already seemed wild and strange to him, as if indeed he could imagine thinking now about the same things as before, and being interested in the same themes and pictures he had been interested in...still so recently. He even felt almost like laughing, yet at the same time his chest was painfully constricted. It was as if he now saw all his former past, and former thoughts, and former tasks, and former themes, and former impressions, and this whole panorama, and himself, and everything, everything, somewhere far down below, barely visible under his feet...It seemed as if he were flying upwards somewhere, and everything was vanishing from his sight. . . Inadvertently moving his hand, he suddenly felt the twenty-kopeck piece clutched in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, swung, and threw it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him that at that moment he had cut himself off, as with scissors, from everyone and everything.

He reached home only towards evening, which meant he had been walking for about six hours. Of where and how he came back, he remembered nothing. He undressed and, shivering all over like a spent horse, lay down on the sofa, pulled the greatcoat over him, and immediately sank into oblivion . . .

In the dark of evening he was jolted back to consciousness by terrible shouting. God, what shouting it was! Never before had he seen or heard such unnatural noises, such howling, screaming, snarling, tears, blows, and curses. He could never even have imagined such beastliness, such frenzy. In horror, he raised himself and sat up on his bed, tormented, and with his heart sinking every moment. But the fighting, screaming, and swearing grew worse and worse. And then, to his great amazement, he suddenly made out his landlady's voice. She was howling, shrieking, and wailing, hurrying, rushing, skipping over words, so that it was even impossible to make anything out, pleading for something—not to be beaten anymore, of course, because she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant became so terrible in its spite and rage that it was no more than a rasp, yet her assailant was also saying something, also rapidly, indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. Suddenly Raskolnikov began shaking like a leaf: he recognized the voice; it was the voice of Ilya Petrovich. Ilya Petrovich was here, beating the landlady! He was kicking her, pounding her head against the steps—that was clear, one could tell from the sounds, the screaming, the thuds! What was happening? Had the world turned upside down, or what? A crowd could be heard gathering on all the floors, all down the stairs; voices, exclamations could be heard, people coming up, knocking, slamming doors, running. “But what for, what for, and how can it be?” he kept repeating, seriously thinking he had gone completely mad. But no, he could hear it too plainly! ... But in that case it meant they would also come to him, “because...it must he on account of that same...on account of yesterday...Lord!” He would have liked to fasten the hook on his door, but he was unable to raise his arm...besides, it was useless! Fear, like ice, encased his soul, tormented him, numbed him...Then at last all this uproar, which had gone on for a good ten minutes, gradually began to subside. The landlady moaned and groaned; Ilya Petrovich still threatened and swore...Then at last he, too, seemed to grow subdued; then no more was heard from him. “Has he really gone? Lord!” Yes, now the landlady was going, too, still moaning and weeping...that was her door slamming shut...Now the crowd on the stairs was breaking up, going back to their apartments—exclaiming, arguing, calling to each other, raising their voices to a shout, then lowering them to a whisper. There must have been many of them; almost the whole house had gathered. “But, God, how can it all be! And why, why did he come here!”

Exhausted, Raskolnikov fell back on the sofa, but could no longer close his eyes; he lay for about half an hour in such suffering, such an unbearable feeling of boundless horror, as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light shone in his room: Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him closely and seeing that he was not asleep, she put the candle on the table and began setting out what she had brought: bread, salt, plate, spoon.

“I bet you haven't eaten since yesterday. You spent the whole day loafing about, and you shaking all over with fever.”

“Nastasya...why were they beating the landlady?”

She looked at him intently.

“Who was beating the landlady?”

“Just now...half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovich, the police chief's assistant, on the stairs...Why was he beating her so? And...why was he here?”

Nastasya studied him silently, frowning, and went on looking at him like that for a long time. He began feeling very unpleasant, even frightened, under this scrutiny.

“Nastasya, why are you silent?” he finally said timidly, in a weak voice.

“It's the blood,” she finally answered softly, as if speaking to herself.

“Blood! ... What blood? . . .” he murmured, turning pale and drawing back towards the wall. Nastasya went on looking at him silently.

“No one was beating the landlady,” she said, again in a stern and resolute voice. He looked at her, scarcely breathing.

“I heard it myself... I wasn't asleep, I was sitting up,” he said even more timidly. “I listened for a long time...The police chief's assistant was here...Everyone came running out to the stairs, from all the apartments...”

“No one was here. It's the blood clamoring in you. When it can't get out and starts clotting up into these little clots, that's when you start imagining things...Are you going to eat, or what?”

He did not reply. Nastasya went on standing over him, looking at him steadily, and would not go away.

“Give me water...Nastasyushka.”

She went downstairs and came back about two minutes later with water in a white earthenware mug; but he no longer remembered what happened next. He only remembered taking one sip of cold water and spilling some from the mug onto his chest. Then came unconsciousness.

III

However, it was not that he was totally unconscious during the whole time of his illness: it was a feverish condition, with moments of delirium and semi-awareness. Afterwards he remembered a good deal. Once it seemed to him that many people were gathered around him and wanted to take him and carry him away somewhere, and there was much arguing and quarreling about him. Then suddenly he was alone in the room, everyone was gone, they were afraid of him, and only opened the door a crack from time to time to look at him, threaten him, arrange something among themselves, laugh and tease him. He remembered Nastasya being often with him; he also made out another person, who seemed very familiar, but precisely who it was he simply could not figure out, and he grieved over it, and even wept. At times it seemed to him that he had been lying there for at least a month, at other times that it was still the same day. But about that—about that he forgot completely; instead, he remembered every minute having forgotten something that must not be forgotten—he agonized, suffered, trying to remember, moaned, fell into a rage, or into terrible, unbearable fear. Then he tried to tear himself away, wanted to run, but there was always someone who stopped him by force, and he would fall into weakness and unconsciousness again. At last he fully recovered his senses.

This occurred in the morning, at ten o'clock. At that hour of the morning, on clear days, sunlight always came in a long stripe across the right wall of his room and lit up the corner by the door. Nastasya was standing at his bedside with another person, a man completely unknown to him, who was studying him with great curiosity. He was a young fellow in a caftan, with a little beard, and had the look of a company agent. The landlady was peeking through the half-opened door. Raskolnikov raised himself slightly.

“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the fellow.

“Look, he's come to!” she said.

“He's come to!” echoed the agent. Realizing that he had come to, the landlady, who was peeking through the door, immediately closed it and hid herself. She had always been shy, and it was burdensome for her to endure conversations and explanations; she was about forty, round and fat, dark-browed, dark-eyed, kind out of fatness and laziness, and even quite comely. But unnecessarily bashful.

“Who...are you?” he continued to ask, addressing the agent himself. But at that moment the door was flung open again and Razumikhin came in, stooping a little because of his height.

“What a ship's cabin,” he shouted, coming in. “I always bump my head; and they call it an apartment! So you've come to, brother? Pashenka just told me.”

“He just came to,” said Nastasya.

“He just came to,” the agent agreed again, with a little smile.

“And who are you, sir, if you please?” Razumikhin asked, suddenly turning to him. “I, you may be pleased to know, am Vrazumikhin;^[50]not Razumikhin, as everyone calls me, but Vrazumikhin, a student and a gentleman's son, and this is my friend. Well, sir, and who are you?”

“And I am the merchant Shelopaev's office agent, sir, here on business, sir.”

“Take this chair, if you please.” Razumikhin himself took the other, on the opposite side of the table. “So you've come to, brother, and it's a good thing you have,” he went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “You hardly ate or drank anything for four days. Really, we gave you tea from a spoon. I brought Zossimov to you twice. Remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and immediately said it was all trifles— something went to your head, or whatever. Some nervous nonsense, he says, or poor rations—they didn't dish you up enough beer and horseradish, hence the illness—but it's nothing, it'll go away, it'll all get through the hopper. Good old Zossimov! He's become quite a doctor! Well, sir, I don't want to keep you,” he again turned to the agent, “will you kindly explain your errand? Note, Rodya, it's the second time they've sent someone from that office; only it wasn't this one before, it was someone else, and I talked with him. Who was it that came before?”

“Presuming it was two days ago, sir, that's right, sir, it would have been Alexei Semyonovich; he's also employed by our office, sir.”

“And he seems to have a bit more sense than you do, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, sir, he surely is a solider man, sir.”

“Admirable. Well, sir, go on.”

“Now then, sir, there's an order come through our office, by your mother's request, through Afanasy Ivanovich Vakhrushin, of whom I judge you've heard more than once, if you please, sir,” the agent began, addressing Raskolnikov directly, “in the case that you're now in your right understanding, sir, to hand you over thirty-five rubles, sir, since Semyon Semyonovich, by your mother's request, received a notice to that effect from Afanasy Ivanovich, in the same way as before. You do know him, if you please, sir?”

“Yes...I remember...Vakhrushin . . .” Raskolnikov said pensively.

“You hear? He knows the merchant Vakhrushin!” Razumikhin exclaimed. “Of course he's in his right understanding! As a matter of fact, I see now that you, too, are a man of sense. Well, sir! It's always pleasant to hear intelligent talk.”

“That same man, sir, Vakhrushin, Afanasy Ivanovich, by the request of your mama, who already did it once in the same way, through him, and he did not refuse this time either, sir, so the other day he sent notice from his parts to Semyon Semyonovich to give you thirty-five rubles, sir, in expectation of better things to come, sir.”

“That 'in expectation of better things to come' came off better than anything else, though the part about 'your mama' wasn't too bad either. Well, what do you think, is he of completely sound mind, or not so completely? Eh?”

“I don't care, as for me, sir. Just so long as there's a little signature, sir.”

“That he'll scribble for you. Have you got a book with you or something?”

“A book, sir, right here.”

“Hand it to me. Now, Rodya, sit up. I'll support you. Scrawl your Raskolnikov for him, take the pen, brother, because we want money now more than a bear wants molasses.”

“No need,” Raskolnikov said, pushing the pen away.

“No need for what?”

“I won't sign.”

“Pah, the devil, but we can't do without the signature!”

“I don't need...money . . .”

“You don't need money! Well, brother, that is a lie, and I'll be your witness! Don't worry, please, he's just...wandering again. By the way, the same thing happens to him when he's awake...You're a reasonable man, and we can guide him, I mean, simply guide his hand and he'll sign. Here we go . . .”

“By the way, I can come back some other time, sir.”

“No, no, why trouble yourself. You're a reasonable man...Come on, Rodya, don't keep your visitor...look, he's waiting,” and he seriously prepared to guide Raskolnikov's hand.

“No, don't, I'll do it myself . . .” he said, and he took the pen and signed the book. The agent laid out the money and departed.

“Bravo! And now, brother, do you want something to eat?”

“Yes,” Raskolnikov answered.

“Have you got soup?”

“From yesterday,” answered Nastasya, who had been standing right there all the while.

“With potatoes and rice?”

“With potatoes and rice.”

“I know it by heart. Fetch your soup, and some tea as well.”

“So I will.”

Raskolnikov looked at everything with deep astonishment and dull, senseless fear. He decided to say nothing and wait for what would happen next. “I don't seem delirious,” he was thinking, “this all seems real enough . . .”

In two minutes Nastasya came back with the soup and announced that tea would follow shortly. The soup arrived with two spoons, two plates, and a whole setting: salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so forth, which had not happened in such proper order for a long time. The tablecloth was clean.

“It wouldn't be a bad idea, Nastasyushka, if Praskovya Pavlovna dispatched us a couple of bottles of beer. We could do with a drink.”

“Well, isn't he a fast one!” Nastasya muttered, and went to carry out the order.

Raskolnikov kept looking wildly and tensely about him. Meanwhile Razumikhin sat down next to him on the sofa, clumsy as a bear, put his left hand behind his head, though he was able to sit up by himself, and with his right hand brought a spoonful of soup to his mouth, having blown on it first so that he would not scald his tongue. But the soup was just barely warm. Raskolnikov greedily swallowed one spoonful, then a second, a third. After giving him several spoonfuls, however, Razumikhin suddenly stopped and declared that concerning any more he would have to consult Zossimov.

Nastasya came in carrying two bottles of beer.

“And will you have tea?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Fetch us up some tea, too, Nastasya, because as far as tea is concerned, I think we can do without the medical faculty. Meanwhile, here's our beer!” He went back to his chair, pulled the soup and beef towards him, and started eating with as much appetite as though he had not eaten for three days.

“I, brother Rodya, now have dinner here like this every day,” he mumbled as well as his beef-stuffed mouth would allow, “and it's all due to Pashenka, your little landlady, who honors me from the bottom of her soul. Naturally, I don't insist, but I don't protest either. And here's Nastasya with the tea. What a quick one! Want some beer, Nastenka?”

“Eh, deuce take you!”

“Some tea, then?”

“I wouldn't refuse.”

“Pour some. Wait, I'll pour you some myself; sit down at the table.”

He set things out at once, poured her tea, poured another cup, abandoned his breakfast, and went and sat on the sofa again. He put his left hand behind the sick man's head as before, raised him up, and began giving him tea from a spoon, again blowing on each spoonful repeatedly and with a special zeal, as though it were this process of blowing that constituted the main and saving point for recovery. Raskolnikov was silent and did not resist, though he felt strong enough to raise himself and sit on the sofa without any external help, strong enough not only to hold the spoon or the cup, but perhaps even to walk. But from some strange, almost animal cunning, it suddenly occurred to him to conceal his strength for the time being, to lie low, to pretend, if necessary, that he had even not quite recovered his wits, and meanwhile to listen and learn what was going on there. However, he was unable to control his loathing: having swallowed about ten spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly freed his head, pushed the spoon away testily, and fell back on the pillow. Under his head there now indeed lay real pillows—down pillows, in clean pillowcases; this, too, he noticed and took into consideration.

“Pashenka must send us up some raspberry preserve today, to make a drink for him,” Razumikhin said, taking his chair again and going back to his soup and beer.

“And where is she going to get raspberries for you?” Nastasya asked, holding the saucer on her five outspread fingertips and sucking tea from it “through the sugar.”^[51]

“In the shop, my friend, that's where she'll get raspberries. You see, Rodya, a whole story has gone on here in your absence. When you ran out on me in such a rascally fashion, without even telling me your address, I suddenly got so mad that I resolved to find you and punish you. I started out that same day. I walked and walked, asked and asked! This apartment, the present one, I forgot about; I'd never have remembered it anyway, because I never knew about it. Well, and the previous one—I only remembered that it was near the Five Corners,^[52] in Kharlamov's house. I searched and searched for this Kharlamov's house— and it turned out finally that it wasn't Kharlamov's house at all, but Buch's—that's how sounds can confuse you! So I got angry. I got angry and went the next day to try my luck at the address bureau, and what do you think: in two minutes they found you for me. They've got you registered.”

“Registered!”

“Sure enough; but General Kobelev just refused to be found while I was there! Well, sir, it's a long story. Anyway, when I landed here, I immediately got to know about all your affairs; all of them, brother, all of them, I know everything, the girl here saw it—Ilya Petrovich was pointed out to me, Nikodim Fomich is my acquaintance now, and so is the caretaker, and Mr. Zamyotov, Alexander Grigorievich, the clerk in the local office, and finally Pashenka—to crown it all. The girl here knows . . .”

“He sweet-talked her,” Nastasya muttered, grinning mischievously.

“Put that into your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna.”

“Go on, you dog!” Nastasya suddenly cried, and burst out laughing. “And I'm Petrovna, not Nikiforovna,” she added suddenly, once she stopped laughing.

“We shall cherish that fact, ma'am. And so, brother, to avoid being superfluous, I first wanted to blast this whole place with electricity and wipe out all the prejudice in the local neighborhood at once; but Pashenka prevailed. I'd never have suspected she could be such a...winsome little thing...Eh, brother? What do you think?”

Raskolnikov remained silent, though he never for a moment tore his anxious eyes from him, and now went on stubbornly staring at him.

“Very much so, in fact,” Razumikhin continued, not in the least embarrassed by the silence, and as if agreeing with the answer he had received, “and even quite all right, in all respects.”

“Ah, the beast!” Nastasya cried out again, the conversation apparently affording her some inexplicable delight.

“Too bad you didn't know how to go about it from the very beginning, brother. That wasn't the right way with her. She is, so to speak, a most unexpected character! Well, her character can wait...Only how did it come about, for instance, that she dared to stop sending you your dinner? Or that promissory note, for example? You must be crazy to go signing any promissory notes! Or that proposed marriage, for example, when the daughter, Natalia Yegorovna, was still alive...I know everything! However, I see I'm touching a sensitive chord, and I am an ass; forgive me. Speaking of stupidity, incidentally, Praskovya Pavlovna is not at all as stupid as one might take her to be at first sight—eh, brother? Wouldn't you agree?”

“Yes . . .” Raskolnikov said through his teeth, looking away, but realizing that it was to his advantage to keep up the conversation.

“Isn't it the truth?” Razumikhin cried out, obviously happy to have received an answer. “But not very intelligent either, eh? A totally, totally unexpected character! I'm somewhat at a loss, brother, I assure you...She's got to be at least forty. She says thirty-six—and she has every right to. By the way, I swear to you that I'm judging her only mentally, by metaphysics alone; she and I have got such an emblem started here, you can forget about your algebra! I don't understand a thing! Well, it's all nonsense; only seeing that you were no longer a student, that you'd lost your lessons, and your outfit, and that after the girl's death there was no point in keeping you on a family footing, she suddenly got scared; and since you, for your part, hid yourself in a corner and wouldn't maintain things as before, she got a notion to chase you out of the apartment. And she'd been nursing that intention for a long time, but then she would have been sorry to lose the promissory note. Besides, you yourself kept assuring her that your mother would pay...”

“It was my own baseness that made me say that...My mother is nearly a beggar herself...and I was lying, so as to be kept on in this apartment and...be fed,” Raskolnikov uttered loudly and distinctly.

“Well, that was only reasonable. But the whole catch was that Mr. Chebarov, court councillor and a man of business, turned up just at that moment. Pashenka would never have thought of anything without him; she's too bashful; well, but a man of business is not bashful, and he naturally asked her straight off: Is there any hope that this little note can be realized? Answer: There is, because there's this mama, who will help Rodya out with her hundred and twenty-five rouble pension even if she must go without eating herself, and there's this dear sister, who would sell herself into slavery for her dear brother. And he started from there...Why are you fidgeting? I've found out all your innermost secrets now, brother; it was not for nothing that you opened your heart to Pashenka while you were still on a family footing with her, and I'm saying it out of love now...That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business listens and goes on eating—and then he eats you up. So she let Chebarov have this little note, supposedly as payment, and he, feeling no shame, went and made a formal claim on it. When I found all that out, I wanted to give him a blast, too, just for conscience's sake, but around that time Pashenka and I got our harmony going, so I called a halt to the whole business, I mean at its very source, by vouching that you would pay. I vouched for you, brother, do you hear? We sent for Chebarov, stuck ten bills in his teeth, got the paper back, and here, I have the honor of presenting it to you—your word is good now—so, here, take it, I've even torn it a little, the way it's officially done.”

Razumikhin laid the promissory note out on the table; Raskolnikov glanced at it and, without saying a word, turned his face to the wall. Even Razumikhin winced.

“I see, brother,” he said after a moment, “that I have made a fool of myself again. I hoped to distract you and amuse you with my babbling, but it seems I've just stirred your bile.”

“Was it you I didn't recognize in my delirium?” Raskolnikov asked, also after a moment's pause and without turning back again.

“It was me, and you even got into a frenzy then, especially the time I brought Zamyotov.”

“Zamyotov?...The clerk?...What for?” Raskolnikov quickly turned and fixed his eyes on Razumikhin.

“But what's wrong with...Why be so worried? He wanted to make your acquaintance; he wanted it himself, because I talked about you a lot with him...Otherwise, who would have told me so much about you? He's a nice fellow, brother, quite a wonderful one...in his own way, naturally. We're friends now; we see each other almost every day. Because I've moved into this neighborhood. You didn't know yet? I've just moved. We've called on Laviza twice. Remember Laviza, Laviza Ivanovna?”

“Was I raving about something?”

“Sure enough! You were out of your mind, sir.”

“What did I rave about?”

“Come now! What did he rave about? You know what people rave about. . . Well, brother, let's not waste any more time. To business!”

He got up from his chair and grabbed his cap.

“What did I rave about?”

“You just won't let go! Afraid about some secret, are you? Don't worry, you didn't say anything about the countess. But about some bulldog, and about some earrings and chains, and about Krestovsky Island, and about some caretaker or other, and about Nikodim Fomich, and about Ilya Petrovich, the police chief's assistant—there was quite a bit of talk about them. And, what's more, you were extremely interested in your own sock, extremely! You kept begging: 'Please, just give it to me.' Zamyotov himself went looking in all the corners for your socks, and handed you that trash with his own perfumed and be-ringed little hands. Only then did you calm down, and you went on clutching that trash in your hands day and night; you wouldn't part with it. It's probably still lying somewhere under your blanket. And then you also begged for some fringe for your trousers, and so tearfully! We tried to get you to say what sort of fringe it was, but we couldn't make anything out... Well, sir, and so to business! Here we have thirty-five roubles. I'm taking ten of them, and in about two hours I'll present you with an accounting for them. Meanwhile, I'll let Zossimov know, though he should have been here long ago, because it's already past eleven. And you, Nastenka, stop and see him as often as you can while I'm gone, find out if he needs anything to drink, or whatever...And I'll tell Pashenka what's needed myself. Good-bye!”

“Calls her Pashenka! Ah, you slyboots!” Nastasya said to his back; then she opened the door and began eavesdropping, but she could not restrain herself and ran downstairs. She was too eager to know what he was saying to the landlady; and generally it was clear that she was completely charmed by Razumikhin.

No sooner had the door closed behind her than the sick man threw off his blanket and jumped from his bed as if half crazed. With burning, convulsive impatience he had been waiting for them to leave, so that he could immediately get down to business in their absence. But get down to what? What business? That, of all things, he now seemed to have forgotten. “Lord! only tell me one thing: do they know all about it, or do they not know yet? And what if they already know and are just pretending, taunting me while I'm lying here, and are suddenly going to come in and say that everything has long been known and that they were just...What must I do now, then? I've forgotten, of all things; I remembered a moment ago, and suddenly forgot! . . .”

He stood in the middle of the room, looking around in painful bewilderment; he went over to the door, opened it, listened; but that was not it. Suddenly, as if recollecting, he rushed to the corner where the hole in the wallpaper was, began examining everything, thrust his hand into the hole, felt around in it, but that was not it either. He went to the stove, opened it, and began feeling around in the ashes: the bits of frayed cuff from his trousers and the torn pieces of his pocket were still lying there as he had thrown them in, so no one had looked there! Then he remembered the sock that Razumikhin had just been telling him about. Sure enough, there it was lying on the sofa under the blanket, but it had gotten so rubbed and dirty in the meantime that Zamyotov certainly could not have noticed anything.

“Bah, Zamyotov! ... the office! ... And why are they calling me to the office? Where is the summons? Bah! ... I've mixed it all up: they summoned me before! I examined the sock that time, too, and now...now I've been sick. And why did Zamyotov come here? Why did Razumikhin bring him?” he was muttering weakly, sitting down on the sofa again. “What is it? Am I still delirious, or is this real? It seems real. . . Ah, I remember: I must flee, flee quickly! I must, I must flee! Yes...but where? And where are my clothes? No boots! They took them away! Hid them! I understand! Ah, here's my coat—they missed it! Here's the money on the table, thank God! Here's the promissory note...I'll take the money and leave, and rent another apartment, and they won't find me! But what about the address bureau? They will find me! Razumikhin will. Better to flee altogether...far away...to America, and spit on all of them! And take the promissory note with me...it will be useful there. What else shall I take? They think I'm sick! They don't know I can walk, heh, heh, heh! ... I could tell by their eyes that they know everything! If only I can manage to get downstairs! But what if they have guards standing there—policemen! What's this, tea? Ah, there's some beer left, half a bottle, cold!”

He grabbed the bottle, which still held enough for a full glass, and delightedly emptied it at one gulp, as if extinguishing a fire in his chest. But in less than a minute the beer went to his head, and a light and even pleasant chill ran down his spine. He lay back and pulled the blanket over him. His thoughts, ill and incoherent to begin with, were becoming more and more confused, and sleep, light and pleasant, soon enveloped him. He settled his head delightedly on the pillow, wrapped himself tightly in the soft, quilted blanket that covered him now in place of the former tattered greatcoat, and fell into a deep, sound, healing sleep.

He woke up on hearing someone come into his room, opened his eyes, and saw Razumikhin, who had flung the door wide open and was standing on the threshold, uncertain whether he should enter or not. Raskolnikov quickly raised himself on the sofa and looked at him as if he were trying hard to recall something.

“Ah, since you're not asleep, here I am! Nastasya, drag that bundle up here!” Razumikhin called down to her. “You'll have the accounting presently...”

“What time is it?” Raskolnikov asked, looking around in alarm.

“You had yourself a good sleep, brother; it's evening outside, must be around six o'clock. You've slept more than six hours . . .”

“Lord! What's the matter with me! . . .”

“And why not? You're welcome to it! Are you in a hurry? Seeing a girl, or something? We've got all the time in the world. I've been waiting for you three hours already; I looked in twice, but you were asleep. I stopped twice at Zossimov's—no one home, and that's that! Never mind, he'll come! ... I also did some little errands of my own. I got moved in today, completely moved in, with my uncle. I have an uncle now...So, well, devil take it, now to business! ... Give me the bundle, Nastenka. Here we go...And how are you feeling, brother?”

“I'm well. I'm not sick...Listen, Razumikhin, were you here long?”

“Three hours, I told you.”

“No, but before?”

“Before when?”

“How long have you been coming here?”

“But I told you all that earlier; don't you remember?”

Raskolnikov fell to thinking. The morning appeared to him as in a dream. He could not recall it by himself, and looked questioningly at Razumikhin.

“Hm!” said the latter, “he forgot! I rather fancied this morning that you still weren't in your right... Now that you've slept, you're better...Really, you look all better. Good boy! Well, to business! You'll remember now. Look here, my dear man.”

He began untying the bundle, which appeared to interest him greatly.

“Believe me, brother, I've taken this especially to heart. Because we have to make a human being out of you, after all. Let's get started: we'll begin from the top. Take a look at this little chapeau,” he began, pulling a rather nice but at the same time very ordinary and cheap cap from the bundle. “Allow me to try it on you.”

“Later, after,” Raskolnikov spoke, peevishly waving it away.

“No, no, brother Rodya, don't resist, later will be too late; besides, I won't be able to sleep all night, because I bought it without any measurements, at a guess. Just right!” he exclaimed triumphantly, having tried it on him. “Just the right size! Headgear, brother, is the foremost thing in an outfit, a recommendation in its way. Every time my friend Tolstyakov goes into some public place where everyone else is standing around in hats and caps, he's forced to remove his lid. Everyone thinks he does it out of slavish feelings, but it's simply because he's ashamed of that bird's nest of his—such a bashful man! Well, Nastenka, here's two examples of headgear for you: this Palmerston” (he took from the corner Raskolnikov's battered top hat, which for some unknown reason he called a Palmerston), “and this piece of jewelrywork. Give us an estimate, Rodya; how much do you think I paid for it? Nastasyushka?” he turned to her, seeing that the other said nothing.

“Offhand I'd say twenty kopecks,” Nastasya replied.

“Twenty kopecks? Fool!” he cried, getting offended. “Even you would cost more than twenty kopecks these days—eighty kopecks! And that's only because it's second-hand. True, there's one condition: if you wear this one out, next year they'll give you another for nothing, by God! Well, sir, now let's start on the United Pants of America, as we used to call them in school. I warn you, I'm proud of them,” and he displayed before Raskolnikov a pair of gray trousers, made of lightweight summer wool. “Not a hole, not a spot, and though they've seen some wear, they're quite acceptable—and there's a matching waistcoat, the same color, as fashion dictates. And the truth is they're even better second-hand: softer, tenderer...You see, Rodya, to make a career in the world, it's enough, in my opinion, if you always observe the season; don't ask for asparagus in January, and you'll have a few more bills in your purse; the same goes for this purchase. The season now is summer, so I made a summer purchase, because by fall the season will call for warmer material anyway, and you'll have to throw these out...more particularly because by then they'll have had time to fall apart anyway, if not from increased luxury, then from inner disarray. So, give me your estimate! How much do you think? Two roubles twenty-five kopecks! And, remember, again with the same condition: you wear these out, next year you get another pair free! At Fedyaev's shop they don't do business any other way: you pay once, and it's enough for your whole life, because in any case you'd never go back there again. Now, sir, let's look at the boots—how do you like them? You can see they've been worn, but they'll do for about two months, because they're foreign goods and foreign workmanship: a secretary from the British Embassy dumped them on the flea market last week; he'd worn them for only six days, but he was badly in need of money. Price—one rouble fifty kopecks. Lucky?”

“Maybe they won't fit!” Nastasya remarked.

“Won't fit? Look at this!” and he pulled Raskolnikov's old, stiff, torn, and mud-caked boot from his pocket. “I went equipped, and they reconstructed the right size from this monster. A lot of feeling went into this whole business. And with respect to linen, I made a deal with the landlady. Here are three shirts to begin with, hempen, but with fashionable fronts...So, sir, altogether that's eighty kopecks for the cap, two roubles twenty-five kopecks for the rest of the clothes, making it three roubles five kopecks in all; plus one rouble fifty kopecks for the boots—because they're so good. Four roubles fifty-five kopecks altogether, and five roubles for all the linen—I got it wholesale—so altogether it's exactly nine roubles fifty-five kopecks. Your change is forty-five kopecks in five-kopeck pieces—here, sir, be so good as to accept it—and thus, Rodya, you are now restored to your full costume, because in my opinion your coat will not only still serve, but even possesses a look of special nobility: that's what it means to buy from Charmeur!^[53] As for socks and the rest, I leave that up to you; we've got twenty-five nice little roubles left—and don't worry about Pashenka and the rent; I told you: the most unlimited credit. And now, brother, allow me to change your linen, because I think the only thing still sick about you is your shirt . . .”

“Let me be! I don't want to!” Raskolnikov waved his hands, having listened with loathing to Razumikhin's tensely playful account of purchasing the clothes . . .

“That, brother, is impossible; why else did I wear out all that good shoe-leather?” Razumikhin insisted. “Nastasyushka, don't be bashful, give me a hand, that's it!” and, in spite of Raskolnikov's resistance, he succeeded in changing his shirt. Raskolnikov fell back on the pillow and for about two minutes would not say a word.

“It'll be some time before they leave me alone!” he thought. “What money did you use to pay for all that?” he asked finally, staring at the wall.

“What money? I like that! It was your own money. An agent came this morning from Vakhrushin; your mother sent it; did you forget that, too?”

“I remember now . . .” Raskolnikov said, after long and sullen reflection. Frowning, Razumikhin kept glancing at him worriedly.

The door opened, and a tall, heavyset man came in, whose appearance also seemed already somewhat familiar to Raskolnikov.

“Zossimov! At last!” Razumikhin cried out with delight.

IV

Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colorlessly pale, cleanshaven face and straight blond hair, wearing spectacles, and with a large gold ring on his fat-swollen finger. He was about twenty-seven years old. He had on a loose, foppish summer coat and light-colored summer trousers; generally everything on him was loose, foppish, and brand new; his linen was impeccable, his watch-chain massive. He was slow, almost languid, of manner, and at the same time studiously casual; a certain pretentiousness, though carefully concealed, kept showing itself every moment. All who knew him found him a difficult man, but said that he knew his business.

“I stopped twice at your place, brother...See, he's come to!” cried Razumikhin.

“I see, I see. So, how are we feeling now, eh?” Zossimov addressed Raskolnikov, looking at him attentively and sitting by his feet on the sofa, where he immediately sprawled as well as he could.

“Eh, he's still sulking,” Razumikhin went on. “We just changed his shirt, and he almost started to cry.”

“That's understandable; you might have waited with the shirt, if he didn't want...Pulse is fine. You still have a little headache, hm?”

“I'm well, I'm completely well!” Raskolnikov said insistently and irritably, raising himself suddenly on the sofa and flashing his eyes, but he immediately fell back on the pillow and turned his face to the wall. Zossimov was watching him attentively.

“Very good...everything's as it ought to be,” he said languidly. “Has he eaten anything?”

They told him, and asked what he was allowed to have.

“Everything's allowed...soup, tea...no mushrooms, naturally, or cucumbers—well, and no need for any beef either, and...well, but what's there to talk about! . . .” He exchanged glances with Razumikhin. “No more medicine, no more anything; and tomorrow we'll see...Today wouldn't be...well, yes...”

“Tomorrow evening I'll take him for an outing!” Razumikhin decided. “To the Yusupov Garden, and then we'll go to the Palais de Cristal.”^[54]

“I wouldn't budge him tomorrow; though maybe...a little... well, we'll see.”

“Too bad. I'm having a housewarming party tonight, just two steps away; he could come, too; at least he could lie on the sofa among us! And what about you?” Razumikhin suddenly addressed Zossimov. “Don't forget, you promised.”

“Maybe a little later. What are you planning to have?”

“Nothing much—tea, vodka, pickled herring. There'll be a pie. For friends only.”

“Who, precisely?”

“They're all from around here, and almost all of them new friends, actually—except maybe for the old uncle, and even he is new: came to Petersburg just yesterday on some little business of his; we see each other once in five years.”

“What is he?”

“He's vegetated all his life as a provincial postmaster...gets some wretched pension, sixty-five years old, nothing to talk about...I love him, though. Porfiry Petrovich will be there, the local police inspector in the department of investigation...a lawyer. But I think you know...”

“He's also some sort of relative of yours?”

“A very distant one; but why are you frowning? So, you quarreled with him once, and now maybe you won't come?”

“I don't give a damn about him . . .”

“So much the better. And then some students, a teacher, one functionary, one musician, an army officer, Zamyotov...”

“Tell me, please, what you, or he, for instance” (Zossimov nodded towards Raskolnikov), “can possibly have in common with someone like Zamyotov?”

“Oh, these peevish ones! Principles! ... You've all got principles in you like springs; you don't dare turn around by your own will; no, in my opinion, if he's a good man, there's a principle for you, and I don't want to know any more. Zamyotov is a most wonderful man.”

“And he has an open palm.”

“So what if he has an open palm! To hell with it! Who cares if he has an open palm!” Razumikhin suddenly cried, getting somehow unnaturally irritated. “Did I praise his open palm? I said he was a good man, only in his own way! And if we look straight, in all ways—will there be many good people left? No, in that case I'm sure that I, with all my innards, would be worth about as much as one baked onion, and then only with you thrown in! . . .”

“That's not enough; I'll give two for you . . .”

“And I'll give only one for you! Look at this wit! Zamyotov is still a boy, I can rough him up, because he ought to be drawn in and not pushed away. You won't set a person right by pushing him away, especially if he's a boy. You have to be twice as careful with a boy. Eh, you progressive dimwits, you really don't understand anything! You disparage man and damage yourselves...And if you'd like to know, we've even got something started together.”

“I wonder what.”

“It all has to do with the case of that painter—that house-painter, I mean...We're going to get him off! However, it won't be any trouble now. The case is perfectly clear now! We'll just put on some more heat.”

“What about this house-painter?”

“You mean I didn't tell you? Really? Ah, that's right, I only told you the beginning...it's about the murder of the old woman, the pawnbroker, the official's widow...so now this house-painter is mixed up in it . . .”

“I heard about that murder before you, and am even interested in the case...somewhat... for a certain reason...and I've read about it in the papers! So, now . . .”

“They killed Lizaveta, too!” Nastasya suddenly blurted out, addressing Raskolnikov. She had been standing in the room all the while, pressed up next to the door, listening.

“Lizaveta?” Raskolnikov muttered in a barely audible voice.

“Lizaveta, who sold things. She used to visit downstairs. She mended your shirts once.”

Raskolnikov turned to the wall where, from among the little flowers on the dirty yellow wallpaper, he picked out one clumsy white flower with little brown lines and began studying it: how many leaves it had, what sort of serrations the leaves had, and how many little lines. There was no feeling in his arms and legs, as if they were paralyzed, but he did not even try to move and went on stubbornly staring at the flower.

“So what about the house-painter?” Zossimov interrupted Nastasya's babbling with some particular displeasure. She sighed and fell silent.

“They've also put him down as the murderer!” Razumikhin went on with fervor.

“They must have evidence or something?”

“The devil they have! Or, no, they precisely do have evidence, only this evidence is no evidence, that's what has to be proved! It's just the same as when they first picked up and suspected those, what's their names...Koch and Pestryakov. Pah! What a stupid way to do things; it's disgusting even for an outsider! Pestryakov may stop by my place today...Incidentally, Rodya, you know about this story, it happened just before your illness, exactly the day before you fainted in the office while they were talking about it . . .”

Zossimov glanced curiously at Raskolnikov; he did not move.

“And you know what, Razumikhin? You're a real busybody after all. Just look at you!” Zossimov remarked.

“Maybe so, but we'll still get him off!” Razumikhin shouted, banging his fist on the table. “Because you know what irks me the most about it? Not that they're lying; lying can always be forgiven; lying is a fine thing, because it leads to the truth. No, what irks me is that they lie and then worship their own lies. I respect Porfiry, but...What, for instance, was the first thing that threw them off? The door was locked, and when they came back with the caretaker it was unlocked. Well, so Koch and Pestryakov did the murder! That's their logic.”

“Don't get so excited; they were simply detained; they couldn't just...Incidentally, I used to run into this Koch; so it turns out he bought unredeemed articles from the old woman, eh?”

“Yes, some sort of swindler! He also buys up promissory notes. A trafficker. Devil take him anyway! But this is what makes me so angry, do you understand? It's their routine that makes me angry, their decrepit, trite, inflexible routine...And here, just in this one case, it would be possible to open up a whole new way. From psychological facts alone one could show how to get on the right track. 'We have facts,' they say. But facts are not everything; at least half the game is knowing how to handle the facts!”

“And you know how to handle the facts?”

“But it's impossible to keep silent when you feel, palpably feel, that you could help with the case, if only...Ahh! ... Do you know the case in detail?”

“I'm still waiting to hear about the house-painter.”

“Yes, where was I! So, listen to the story: exactly three days after the murder, in the morning, while they were still nursing Koch and Pestryakov along—though they had both accounted for their every step; it was cryingly obvious—suddenly a most unexpected fact emerged. A certain peasant, Dushkin, the owner of a tavern across the street from that same house, came to the police with a jewelry case containing a pair of gold earrings, and with a whole tale to go with it: 'The day before yesterday, in the evening, some time after eight or thereabouts'—the very day and hour, you see?—'a workman, this painter, Mikolai, who had also stopped in earlier in the day, came running to me and brought me this box with gold earrings and little stones, and asked if he could pawn them for two roubles, and when I asked where he got them, he declared that he'd picked them up from the sidewalk. I didn't question him any more about it'—this is Dushkin speaking—'but I got him out one little note'—a rouble, that is—'because I thought if it wasn't me, he'd pawn them to someone else, and it makes no difference, because he'll drink it up anyway, and it's better if the thing stays with me—the deeper hidden, the closer to hand—and if something comes up, or there are any rumors, I can represent it at once.' Well, of course, that's all his old granny's dream, he's lying like a rug, because I know this Dushkin, he's a pawnbroker himself, and he receives stolen goods, and he filched a thirty-rouble article from Mikolai with no intention of 'representing' it. He simply got scared. But, devil take it, listen; Dushkin goes on: 'And that peasant there, Mikolai Dementiev, I know him since childhood, he's from our province, the Zaraisk district, because I'm from Riazan myself. And Mikolai's not a drunkard, but he does drink, and it was known to me that he was working in that house there, painting, him and Mitrei, the two of them being from the same parts. And when he got the rouble, he broke it straight off, drank two cups in a row, took the change, and left, and I didn't see Mitrei with him that time. And the next day I heard that Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta was killed with an axe, and I used to know them, sir, and I got to wondering about the earrings—because we knew the deceased used to lend money on things like that. I went to their house and started making inquiries, cautiously, for myself, tiptoeing around, and first of all I asked if Mikolai was there. And Mitrei said Mikolai went on a spree, came home drunk at daybreak, stayed for about ten minutes, and left again, and Mitrei didn't see him after that and was finishing the job by himself. And their job is up the same stairway as the murder was, on the second floor. So I heard all that, but I didn't say nothing to nobody'—this is Dushkin speaking—'I just found out everything I could about the murder and went home again, still in the same doubts. And then this morning, at eight o'clock'—three days later, you see?—'Mikolai comes in, not sober, but not so drunk either, able to understand what's said to him. He sits down on the bench without a word. And besides him, right then there was just one stranger in the tavern, and another man, an acquaintance, asleep on a bench, and our two lads, sir. “Have you seen Mitrei?” I ask. “No, I haven't,” he says. “You've been gone?” “Yes,” he says, “since two days ago.” “And where did you sleep last night?” “In Peski, with the boys from Kolomna.”^[55] “So,” I say, “where did you get those earrings?” “Found them on the sidewalk.” But the way he says it don't ring true, and he's not looking at me straight. “And did you hear,” I say, “thus and so happened that same night, and that same hour, up that same stairway?” “No, I didn't,” and he listens with his eyes popping out, and suddenly he goes white as chalk. I'm telling him, and he's reaching for his hat and starting to get up. Right then I wanted to keep him there, so I said, “Wait, Mikolai, why don't you have a drink?” And I winked to the lad to hold the door, and I was getting out from behind the counter when he up and bolted on me, out into the street, and ran off down a back alley, and that's the last I saw of him. But I stopped doubting then, because the sin on him was clear “Sure enough! . . .” said Zossimov.

“Wait! Listen to the rest! Naturally, they set out hotfoot after Mikolai; Dushkin was detained, a search was carried out, and the same for Mitrei; they also ransacked the boys from Kolomna—then all at once, two days ago, Mikolai himself was brought in: he'd been detained near the ------sky Gate, at an inn. He'd gone in, taken off his cross, a silver one, and asked for a drink in exchange. They gave him one. A few minutes later a woman went out to the cow-shed and saw him through a crack in the wall of the adjoining shed: he'd tied his belt to a beam, made a noose, and was standing on a stump trying to put the noose around his neck. The woman screamed to high heaven; people came running: 'So that's what you're up to!' 'Take me to such-and-such police station, I'll confess everything.' So he was presented with all due honors at such-and-such police station—here, that is. And then this and that, who and what, how old are you —'Twenty-two'— and so on and so forth. Question: 'When you and Mitrei were working, did you see anyone on the stairs at such-and-such an hour?' Answer: 'Sure, some people maybe passed by, not so's we noticed.' 'And did you hear anything, any noise, or whatever?' 'Nothing special.' 'And was it known to you, Mikolai, that on such-and-such a day and hour, the widow so-and-so was murdered and robbed, and her sister as well?' 'No, sir, I never knew nothing about that, I first heard it from Afanasy Pavlovich three days after, in the tavern.' 'And where did you get the earrings?' 'Found them on the sidewalk.' 'Why didn't you come to work with Mitrei the next day?' 'Because I went on a spree.' 'Where?' 'In such-and-such.' 'Why did you run away from Dushkin?' 'Because then I got real scared.' 'Scared of what?' 'Having the law on me.' 'Why would you be scared if you felt you weren't guilty of anything? . . .' Now, you may believe it or not, Zossimov, but this question was asked, and literally in those words—I know positively, it was told to me accurately! How do you like that, eh? How do you like it?”

“Well, no, all the same there is evidence.”

“But I'm not talking about evidence now, I'm talking about the question, about how they understand their essence! Ah, devil take it! ... Well, so they pushed him and pushed him, pressed him and pressed him, and so he confessed: 'I didn't find them on the sidewalk, I found them in the apartment there where Mitrei and me was painting.' 'How was that?' 'It was just like this, that Mitrei and me was painting and painting all day till eight o'clock, and was just about to go, and Mitrei took the brush and slapped some paint on my mug; so he slapped some paint on my mug and ran away, and I ran after him. So I was running after him, shouting my head off; and when I turned from the stairs to the gateway, I ran smack into the caretaker and some gentlemen, and how many gentlemen it was I don't remember, and the caretaker swore at me for that, and the other caretaker also swore at me, and the caretaker's woman came out and swore at us, too, and there was a gentleman coming in the gate with a lady, and he also swore at us, because me and Mitka was lying there and blocking the way: I grabbed Mitka's hair and pulled him down and started punching him, and Mitka was under me and grabbed my hair and started punching me, and not because we was mad, it was all real friendly, for the fun of it. And then Mitka got free and ran out to the street, and I ran after him but I couldn't catch him, so I went back to the apartment by myself, because we had to tidy up. I started picking up and waiting for Mitrei, in case he came back. And by the door to the entryway, behind the wall, in the corner, I stepped on a box. I looked and it was lying there wrapped up in paper. I took the paper off, and saw these tiny little hooks, so I undid the hooks—and there was earrings inside the box...”

“Behind the door? It was behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov suddenly cried out, staring at Razumikhin with dull, frightened eyes, and slowly raising himself on the sofa with the support of his arm.

“Yes...but why? What's the matter? Why are you looking like that?” Razumikhin also rose from his seat.

“Nothing! ... ” Raskolnikov answered, barely audibly, sinking onto the pillow again and again turning to the wall. Everyone was silent for a short while.

“He must have been dozing and suddenly woke up,” Razumikhin said at last, looking questioningly at Zossimov; the latter made a slight negative movement with his head.

“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What then?”

“So, what then? As soon as he saw the earrings, he immediately forgot both the apartment and Mitka, grabbed his hat, and ran to Dushkin, and, as we know, got a rouble from him, lied to him that he had found them on the sidewalk, and at once went on a spree. And about the murder he keeps repeating the same thing: 'I never knew nothing about that, I first heard about it three days after.' 'And why did you not come before now?' 'From fear.' 'And why did you want to hang yourself?' 'From thinking.' 'Thinking what?' 'That I'd have the law on me.' Well, that's the whole story. Now, what do you suppose they drew from it?”

“What is there to suppose? There's a trace there, something at least. A fact. You don't think they should let your painter go free?”

“But they've put him right down as the murderer now! They don't even have any doubts . . .”

“Nonsense; you're too excited. And what about the earrings? You must agree that if on that same day and hour the earrings from the old woman's trunk got into Nikolai's hands—you must agree that they got there somehow? That's no trifle in such investigations.”

“Got there somehow! But how did they get there?” Razumikhin cried out. “And can it be that you, a doctor, you, whose first duty it is to study man, and who have the opportunity before anyone else of studying human nature—can it be that you do not see, from all these facts, what sort of character this Nikolai is? Can you not see from the very first that everything he testified to during the interrogation is the most sacred truth? They got into his hands exactly as he testified. He stepped on the box and picked it up.”

“The most sacred truth? Nevertheless, he himself admitted that he lied at first.”

“Listen to me, listen carefully: the caretaker, and Koch, and Pestryakov, and the other caretaker, and the first caretaker's wife, and the market woman who was sitting with her in the caretaker's room at the time, and the court councillor Kriukov, who got out of a carriage that same moment and was coming through the gateway arm in arm with a lady—all, meaning eight or ten witnesses, testify with one voice that Nikolai was holding Dmitri down, was lying on him and punching him, and that the other grabbed his hair and was also punching him. They were lying across the entrance, blocking the way; people swear at them from all sides, and they, 'like little children' (as the witnesses literally said), are lying on each other, squealing, fighting, and laughing, each one louder than the other, with the most ridiculous faces, and then they run out to the street, like children, chasing each other. Hear that? Now, pay strict attention: the bodies upstairs are still warm, you hear, still warm; they were found that way! If they killed them, or just Nikolai alone, and broke into the trunk besides and robbed it, or merely took part in the robbery somehow, then allow me to ask you just one question: does such a state of mind—that is, squeals, laughter, a childish fight under the gateway—does it fit with axes, with blood, with criminal cunning, stealth, and robbery? They had only just killed them, only five or ten minutes earlier—that's how it comes out, since the bodies are still warm—and suddenly, abandoning the bodies and the open apartment, and knowing that people have just gone up there, and abandoning the loot, they go rolling around in the street like little children, laughing, attracting everybody's attention, and there are ten unanimous witnesses to it!”

“Strange, certainly! Impossible, in fact, but . . .”

“No buts, brother, because if the earrings, which on that day and hour turned up in Nikolai's hands, do constitute important factual evidence against him—directly explained, however, by his own testimony, and therefore still disputable evidence—we must also take into consideration certain exonerating facts, all the more so in that these facts are irrefutable. But do you think, seeing the nature of our jurisprudence, that they will or can accept such a fact—based solely on psychological impossibility alone, and on state of mind alone—as an irrefutable fact, demolishing all incriminating and material facts whatsoever? No, they won't, not for anything, because they've found the box, and the man wanted to hang himself, 'which could only be because he felt guilty'! That's the capital question, that's why I get so excited! You must understand!”

“Oh, I do see that you're excited. Wait, I forgot to ask: what proof is there that the box with the earrings indeed came from the old woman's trunk?”

“It's been proved,” Razumikhin answered, frowning and as if with reluctance. “Koch recognized the article and led them to the owner, and he proved positively that the article indeed belongs to him.”

“That's bad. Now another thing: did anyone see Nikolai during the time that Koch and Pestryakov were upstairs, and can it be proved somehow?”

“That's just it, nobody saw him,” Razumikhin answered with vexation, “that's the worst of it: even Koch and Pestryakov didn't notice them as they were going upstairs, though their testimony wouldn't mean much now. 'We saw that the apartment was open,' they say, 'that someone must have been working in it, but we didn't pay attention as we passed by, and we don't remember exactly whether the workers were there at the moment or not.’”

“Hm. So the only defense they have is that they were punching each other and laughing. Granted it's strong evidence, but. . . Then how, may I ask, do you explain the whole fact yourself? How do you explain the finding of the earrings, if he indeed found them as he testifies?”

“How do I explain it? But what is there to explain; the thing is clear!

At least the path the case should take is clear and established, and it's precisely the box that establishes it. The real murderer dropped the earrings. The murderer was upstairs when Koch and Pestryakov were knocking, and had locked himself in. Like a fool, Koch went downstairs; then the murderer jumped out and ran downstairs himself, since he had no other choice. On the stairs he hid from Koch, Pestryakov, and the caretaker in the empty apartment at the precise moment when Dmitri and Nikolai had gone running out of it, stood behind the door while the caretaker and the others were going upstairs, waited until their steps died away, then went down as calmly as you please, precisely at the same moment that Dmitri and Nikolai ran out to the street and everyone left and there was no one in the gateway. Maybe someone saw him, but without paying any attention—there were enough people going by! And he dropped the box out of his pocket while he was standing behind the door, and didn't notice that he'd dropped it because he had other things on his mind. But the box clearly proves that he was standing precisely there. That's the whole trick!”

“Clever, brother! Really clever! Couldn't be cleverer!”

“But why, why?”

“Because of the timing...the way it all falls together so nicely...just like a stage play.”

“A-a-ah!” Razumikhin began to shout, but at that moment the door opened and a new person, unknown to anyone present, walked in.

V

This was a gentleman already well past his youth, prim, stately, with a wary and peevish physiognomy, who began by stopping in the doorway and glancing about with offensively unconcealed astonishment, as if asking with his eyes: “Where on earth have I come to?” Mistrustfully, and even with a pretense of being somewhat alarmed, even almost affronted, he looked around Raskolnikov's cramped and low “ship's cabin.” After which, with the same astonishment, he shifted his gaze and fixed it upon Raskolnikov himself, undressed, unkempt, unwashed, lying on his meagre and dirty sofa, who was also staring motionlessly at him. Then, with the same deliberateness, he began staring at the disheveled, uncombed, unshaven figure of Razumikhin, who with insolent inquisitiveness looked him straight in the eye, not moving from where he sat. The tense silence lasted for about a minute; then at last, as might be expected, a slight change of scene took place. The newly arrived gentleman must have realized from certain, albeit rather sharp, indications, that in this “ship's cabin” his exaggeratedly stern bearing would get him precisely nowhere, and, softening somewhat, he turned and addressed Zossimov, politely though not without sternness, rapping out each syllable of his question:

“Mr. Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a student, or a former student?”

Zossimov slowly stirred himself and would perhaps have answered if Razumikhin, who had not been addressed at all, had not immediately prevented him.

“He's here, lying on the sofa! What is it you want?”

This offhanded “What is it you want?” simply floored the prim gentleman; he even almost turned to Razumikhin, but managed to catch himself in time and quickly turned back to Zossimov.

“This is Raskolnikov,” Zossimov drawled, nodding towards the sick man, and he yawned, opening his mouth extraordinarily widely as he did so, and keeping it that way for an extraordinarily long time. Then he slowly drew his hand up to his waistcoat pocket, took out an enormous, convex, gold-lidded watch, opened it, looked, and as slowly and sluggishly put it back into his pocket.

Raskolnikov himself lay silently on his back all the while, staring obstinately, though without any thought, at the man who had come in. His face, now turned away from the curious flower on the wallpaper, was extremely pale and had a look of extraordinary suffering, as though he had just undergone painful surgery or had just been released from torture. But the newly arrived gentleman gradually began to elicit more and more attention from him, then perplexity, then mistrust, then even something like fear. And when Zossimov, pointing to him, said: “This is Raskolnikov,” he suddenly raised himself quickly, as if jumping up a little, sat up on his bed, and spoke in an almost defiant, but faltering and weak voice:

“Yes! I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”

The visitor looked at him attentively and said imposingly:

“Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. I have every hope that by now my name is not wholly unfamiliar to you.”

But Raskolnikov, who had been expecting something quite different, looked at him dully and pensively and made no reply, as though he were decidedly hearing Pyotr Petrovich's name for the first time.

“What? Is it possible that you have received no news as yet?” Pyotr Petrovich asked, wincing slightly.

In response to which Raskolnikov slowly sank back on the pillow, flung his hands up behind his head, and began staring at the ceiling. Anguish flitted across Luzhin's face. Zossimov and Razumikhin began scrutinizing him with even greater curiosity, and he finally became visibly embarrassed.

“I had supposed and reckoned,” he began to drawl, “that a letter sent more than ten days ago, almost two weeks, in fact . . .”

“Listen, why do you go on standing in the doorway?” Razumikhin suddenly interrupted. “If you've got something to explain, do sit down; there's not room enough there for both you and Nastasya. Step aside, Nastasyushka, let him pass! Come in, there's a chair for you right here! Squeeze by!”

He pushed his chair back from the table, made a small space between the table and his knees, and waited in that somewhat strained position for the visitor to “squeeze” through the crack. The moment was chosen in such a way that it was quite impossible to refuse, and the visitor started through the narrow space, hurrying and stumbling. Having reached the chair, he sat down and eyed Razumikhin suspiciously.

“Anyway, you oughtn't to be embarrassed,” Razumikhin blurted out, “it's the fifth day that Rodya's been sick, for three days he was delirious, but now he's come to and even got his appetite back. Here sits his doctor, he's just finished examining him; and I am Rodka's friend, also a former student, and presently his nurse; so you oughtn't to count us or be confused, but just go ahead and say what it is you want.”

“Thank you. But shall I not disturb the sick man with my presence and conversation?” Pyotr Petrovich turned to Zossimov.

“No-o-o,” Zossimov drawled, “you may even divert him.” And he yawned again.

“Oh, he's been conscious for a long time, since morning!” continued Razumikhin, whose familiarity had the appearance of such unfeigned ingenuousness that Pyotr Petrovich reconsidered and began to take heart, perhaps also partly because the insolent ragamuffin had had time to introduce himself as a student.

“Your mama . . .” Luzhin began.

A loud “Hm!” came from Razumikhin. Luzhin looked at him questioningly.

“Nothing; never mind; go on . . .”

Luzhin shrugged.

“... Your mama began a letter to you, myself being among them at the time. Having arrived here, I waited purposely for a few days before coming to see you, so as to be completely certain that you had been informed of everything; but now, to my surprise...”

“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov suddenly said, with an expression of the most impatient annoyance. “That's you, is it? The fiancé? So, I know! ... and enough!”

Pyotr Petrovich was decidedly hurt, but held his tongue. He hastened to try and understand what it all meant. The silence lasted for about a minute.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned slightly towards him when he replied, suddenly began looking him over again, attentively and with some special curiosity, as if he had not managed to look him over well enough before, or as if he had been struck by something new in him; he even raised himself from his pillow on purpose to do so. Indeed, there was some striking peculiarity, as it were, in Pyotr Petrovich's general appearance—namely, something that seemed to justify the appellation of “fiancé” just given him so unceremoniously. First, it was evident, and even all too noticeable, that Pyotr Petrovich had hastened to try to use his few days in the capital to get himself fitted out and spruced up while waiting for his fiancée—which, incidentally, was quite innocent and pardonable. Even his own, perhaps all too smug awareness of his pleasant change for the better could be forgiven on such an occasion, for Pyotr Petrovich did indeed rank as a fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor and everything was fine, except perhaps that it was all too new and spoke overly much of a certain purpose. Even the smart, spanking-new top hat testified to this purpose: Pyotr Petrovich somehow treated it all too reverently and held it all too carefully in his hands. Even the exquisite pair of lilac-colored, real Jouvain gloves^[56] testified to the same thing, by this alone, that they were not worn but were merely carried around for display. In Pyotr Petrovich's attire, light and youthful colors predominated. He was wearing a pretty summer jacket of a light brown shade, light-colored summer trousers, a matching waistcoat, a fine, newly purchased shirt, a little tie of the lightest cambric with pink stripes, and the best part was that it all even became Pyotr Petrovich. His face, very fresh and even handsome, looked younger than his forty-five years to begin with. Dark side-whiskers pleasantly overshadowed it from both sides, like a pair of mutton chops, setting off very handsomely his gleaming, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair, only slightly touched with gray, combed and curled by the hairdresser, did not thereby endow him with a ridiculous or somehow silly look, as curled hair most often does, inevitably making one resemble a German on his way to the altar. And if there was indeed something unpleasant and repulsive in this rather handsome and solid physiognomy, it proceeded from other causes. Having looked Mr. Luzhin over unceremoniously, Raskol-nikov smiled venomously, sank onto the pillow again, and went back to staring at the ceiling.

But Mr. Luzhin checked himself, and apparently decided to ignore all this strangeness for the time being.

“I am quite, quite sorry to find you in such a state,” he began again, breaking the silence with some effort. “If I had known you were unwell, I would have come sooner. But, you know, one gets caught up! ... Moreover, in my line as a lawyer, I have a rather important case in the Senate. Not to mention those cares which you yourself may surmise. I am expecting your relations—that is, your mama and sister—any time now...”

Raskolnikov stirred and wanted to say something; a certain agitation showed on his face. Pyotr Petrovich stopped and waited, but since nothing followed, he went on.

“. . . Any time now. I have found them an apartment for the immediate future . . .”

“Where?” Raskolnikov said weakly.

“Quite near here, in Bakaleev's house . . .”

“That's on Voznesensky,” Razumikhin interrupted, “there are two floors of furnished rooms; the merchant Yushin runs the place; I've been there.”

“Yes, furnished rooms, sir . . .”

“Utterly vile: filth, stench, and a suspicious place besides; things have happened there; and devil knows who the tenants are! ... I went there on a scandalous occasion myself. But it's cheap.”

“I, of course, was not able to gather so much information, being new here,” Pyotr Petrovich objected touchily, “but in any case they are two quite, quite clean little rooms, and since it is for quite a short period of time...I have already found a real, that is, our future apartment,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “and it is now being decorated; and I myself am squeezed into furnished rooms for the time being, two steps away, at Mrs. Lippewechsel's, in the apartment of a young friend of mine, Andrei Semyonych Lebezyatnikov; it was he who directed me to Bakaleev's house . . .”

“Lebezyatnikov?” Raskolnikov said slowly, as if recalling something.

“Yes, Andrei Semyonych Lebezyatnikov, a clerk in the ministry. Do you know him perchance?”

“Yes...no . . .” Raskolnikov replied.

“Excuse me, but your question made it seem that you did. I once used to be his guardian...a very nice young man...up-to-date...I am delighted to meet young people: one learns what is new from them.” Pyotr Petrovich looked hopefully around at those present.

“In what sense do you mean?” Razumikhin asked.

“In the most serious, so to speak, in the very essence of things,” Pyotr Petrovich picked up, as if delighted to be asked. “You see, it has been ten years since I last visited Petersburg. All these new things of ours, reforms, ideas—all this has touched us in the provinces as well; but to see better, and to see everything, one must be in Petersburg. Well, sir, it is precisely my notion that one sees and learns most of all by observing our younger generations. And I confess I am delighted...”

“With what, exactly?”

“A vast question. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that I find a clearer vision, more criticism, so to speak, more practicality . . .”

“That's true,” Zossimov said through his teeth.

“Nonsense, there's no practicality,” Razumikhin seized upon him. “Practicality is acquired with effort, it doesn't fall from the sky for free. And we lost the habit of any activity about two hundred years ago...There may be some ideas wandering around,” he turned to Pyotr Petrovich, “and there is a desire for the good, albeit a childish one; even honesty can be found, though there are crooks all over the place; but still there's no practicality! Practicality is a scant item these days.”

“I cannot agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovich objected with visible pleasure. “Of course, there are passions, mistakes, but one must also make allowances: passions testify to enthusiasm for the cause, and to the wrong external situation in which the cause finds itself. And if little has in fact been done, there also has not been much time. Not to mention means. But it is my personal view, if you like, that something has been done: useful new ideas have been spread, and some useful new books, instead of the former dreamy and romantic ones; literature is acquiring a shade of greater maturity; many harmful prejudices have been eradicated and derided...In short, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that in itself, I think, is already something, sir . . .”

“All by rote! Recommending himself!” Raskolnikov said suddenly.

“What, sir?” asked Pyotr Petrovich, who had not caught the remark, but he received no reply.

“That is all quite correct,” Zossimov hastened to put in.

“Is it not, sir?” Pyotr Petrovich continued, glancing affably at Zossimov. “You yourself must agree,” he went on addressing Razumikhin, but now with the shade of a certain triumph and superiority, and he almost added “young man,” “that there is such a thing as prosperity or, as they now say, progress, if only in the name of science and economic truth...”

“A commonplace!”

“No, it is not a commonplace, sir! If up to now, for example, I have been told to 'love my neighbor,' and I did love him, what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovich continued, perhaps with unnecessary haste. “What came of it was that I tore my caftan in two, shared it with my neighbor, and we were both left half naked, in accordance with the Russian proverb which says: If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them.^[57] But science says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest. If you love only yourself, you will set your affairs up properly, and your caftan will also remain in one piece. And economic truth adds that the more properly arranged personal affairs and, so to speak, whole caftans there are in society, the firmer its foundations are and the better arranged its common cause. It follows that by acquiring solely and exclusively for myself, I am thereby precisely acquiring for everyone, as it were, and working so that my neighbor will have something more than a torn caftan, not from private, isolated generosities now, but as a result of universal prosperity. A simple thought, which unfortunately has been too long in coming, overshadowed by rapturousness and dreaminess, though it seems it would not take much wit to realize . . .”^[58]

“Sorry, wit is what I happen to lack,” Razumikhin interrupted sharply, “so let's stop. I did have some purpose when I started talking, but all this self-gratifying chatter, this endless stream of commonplaces, and all the same, always the same, has become so sickening after three years that, by God, I blush not only to say such things, but to hear them said in my presence. Naturally, you've hastened to recommend yourself with regard to your knowledge; that is quite pardonable, and I do not condemn it. For the time being I simply wanted to find out who you were, because, you know, there are all sorts of traffickers hanging on to this common cause who in their own interest have so distorted everything they've touched that they have decidedly befouled the whole cause. And so, enough, sir!”

“My dear sir,” Mr. Luzhin began, wincing with extreme dignity, “do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I, too . . .”

“Oh, heavens, heavens...How could I! ... And so, enough, sir!” Razumikhin cut him off and turned abruptly to Zossimov, to continue their previous conversation.

Pyotr Petrovich proved intelligent enough to believe the explanation at once. But he resolved to leave in two minutes anyway.

“I hope that our acquaintance, which has presently begun,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “will, upon your recovery and in view of circumstances known to you, continue to grow...I wish especially that your health . . .”

Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovich began to get up from his chair.

“The killer was certainly one of her clients!” Zossimov was saying assertively.

“Certainly one of her clients!” Razumikhin echoed. “Porfiry doesn't give away his thoughts, but all the same he's interrogating the clients . . .”

“Interrogating the clients?” Raskolnikov asked loudly.

“Yes. What of it?”

“Nothing.”

“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.

“Koch has led him to some; the names of others were written on the paper the articles were wrapped in; and some came on their own when they heard...”

“Must be a cunning and experienced rogue! What boldness! What determination!”

“But he's not, that's precisely the point!” Razumikhin interrupted. “That's what throws you all off. I say he was not cunning, not experienced, and this was certainly his first attempt! Assume calculation and a cunning rogue, and it all looks improbable. Assume an inexperienced man, and it looks as if he escaped disaster only by chance, and chance can do all sorts of things! Good God, maybe he didn't even foresee any obstacles! And how does he go about the business? He takes things worth ten or twenty roubles, stuffs his pockets with them, rummages in a woman's trunk, among her rags—while in the chest, in the top drawer, in a strongbox, they found fifteen hundred roubles in hard cash, and notes besides! He couldn't even rob, all he could do was kill! A first attempt, I tell you, a first attempt; he lost his head! And he got away not by calculation, but by chance!”

“It seems you're referring to the recent murder of the official's old widow,” Pyotr Petrovich put in, addressing Zossimov. He was already standing, hat and gloves in hand, but wished to drop a few more clever remarks before leaving. He was obviously anxious to make a favorable impression, and vanity overcame his good sense.

“True. Have you heard about it?”

“Of course. It was in the neighborhood.”

“You know the details?”

“I cannot say that I do; but there is another circumstance in it that interests me—a whole question, so to speak. I am not even referring to the fact that crime has been increasing among the lower classes over the past five years; I am not referring to the constant robberies and fires everywhere; what is most strange to me is that crime has been increasing among the upper classes as well, and in a parallel way, so to speak. In one place they say a former student intercepted mail on the highway; in another, people of advanced social position have been counterfeiting banknotes; then, in Moscow, a whole band is caught making forged tickets for the latest lottery—and among the chief participants is a lecturer in world history; then one of our embassy secretaries is murdered abroad, for reasons mysterious and monetary..^.[59] And now, if this old pawnbroker was killed by one of her clients, it follows that he is a man of higher society—because peasants do not pawn gold objects—and what, then, explains this licentiousness, on the one hand, in the civilized part of our society?”

“There have been many economic changes . . .” Zossimov responded.

“What explains it?” Razumikhin took up. “It might be explained precisely by an all too inveterate impracticality.”

“How do you mean that, sir?”

“It's what your Moscow lecturer answered when he was asked why he forged lottery tickets: 'Everybody else is getting rich one way or another, so I wanted to get rich quickly, too.' I don't remember his exact words, but the meaning was for nothing, quickly, without effort. We're used to having everything handed to us, to pulling ourselves up by other men's bootstraps, to having our food chewed for us. Well, and when the great hour struck, everyone showed what he was made of . . .”

“But morality, after all? The rules, so to speak...”

“What are you so worried about?” Raskolnikov broke in unexpectedly. “It all went according to your theory!”

“How according to my theory?”

“Get to the consequences of what you've just been preaching, and it will turn out that one can go around putting a knife in people.”

“Good God!” cried Luzhin.

“No, that's not so,” echoed Zossimov.

Raskolnikov was lying pale on the sofa, his upper lip trembling; he was breathing heavily.

“There is measure in all things,” Luzhin continued haughtily. “An economic idea is not yet an invitation to murder, and if one simply supposes . . .”

“And is it true,” Raskolnikov again suddenly interrupted, his voice, trembling with anger, betraying a certain joy of offense, “is it true that you told your fiancée...at the same time as you received her consent, that above all you were glad she was poor...because it's best to take a wife up from destitution, so that you can lord it over her afterwards...and reproach her with having been her benefactor? . . .”

“My dear sir!” Luzhin, all flushed and confused, cried out angrily and irritably, “my dear sir...to distort a thought in such a fashion! Excuse me, but I must tell you that the rumors which have reached you, or, better, which have been conveyed to you, do not have even the shadow of a reasonable foundation, and I...suspect I know...in short...this barb...your mama, in short. . . Even without this, she seemed to me, for all her excellent qualities, incidentally, to be of a somewhat rapturous and romantic cast of mind...But all the same I was a thousand miles from supposing that she could understand and present the situation in such a perversely fantastic form...And finally...finally . . .”

“And do you know what?” Raskolnikov cried out, raising himself on his pillow and looking point-blank at him with piercing, glittering eyes, “do you know what?”

“What, sir?” Luzhin stopped and waited, with an offended and defiant air. The silence lasted a few seconds.

“Just this, that if you dare...ever again...to mention my mother...even a single word...I'll send you flying down the stairs!”

“What's got into you!” cried Razumikhin.

“Ah, so that's how it is, sir!” Luzhin became pale and bit his lip. “Listen to me, sir,” he began distinctly, restraining himself as much as he could, but still breathless, “even earlier, from the first moment, I guessed at your hostility, but I remained here on purpose to learn still more. I could forgive much in a sick man, and a relation, but now...you...never, sir . . .”

“I am not sick!” Raskolnikov cried out.

“So much the worse, sir . . .”

“Get the hell out of here!”

But Luzhin was already leaving on his own, without finishing his speech, again squeezing between the table and the chair; this time Razumikhin stood to let him pass. Without looking at anyone, without even nodding to Zossimov, who for a long time had been shaking his head at him to leave the sick man alone, Luzhin went out, cautiously raising his hat just to shoulder height and ducking a little as he stepped through the doorway. And even the curve of his back at that moment seemed expressive of the terrible insult he was bearing away with him.

“Impossible, simply impossible!” the bewildered Razumikhin said, shaking his head.

“Leave me, leave me, all of you!” Raskolnikov cried out frenziedly. “Will you tormentors never leave me! I'm not afraid of you! I'm not afraid of anyone now, not of anyone! Away from me! Alone, I want to be alone, alone, alone!”

“Come on!” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumikhin.

“Good God, can we leave him like this?”

“Come on!” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he walked out. Razumikhin thought a little and ran after him.

“It might get worse if we don't do as he says,” Zossimov said, already on the stairs. “He shouldn't be irritated . . .”

“What is it with him?”

“He needs some sort of favorable push, that's all! He was strong enough today...You know, he's got something on his mind! Something fixed, heavy...That I'm very much afraid of; most assuredly!”

“But maybe it's this gentleman, this Pyotr Petrovich! You could see from what they said that he's marrying his sister, and that Rodya got a letter about it just before his illness . . .”

“Yes; why the devil did he have to come now; he may have spoiled the whole thing. And did you notice that he's indifferent to everything, doesn't respond to anything, except for one point that drives him wild: this murder . . .”

“Yes, yes!” Razumikhin picked up, “of course I noticed it! He gets interested, frightened. He got frightened the very day of his illness, in the police chief's office; he passed out.”

“Tell me about it in more detail this evening, and then I'll tell you a thing or two. He interests me, very much so! I'll come and check on him in half an hour...There won't be any inflammation, though . . .”

“My thanks to you! And I'll wait at Pashenka's meanwhile, and keep an eye on him through Nastasya...”

Raskolnikov, after they left, looked at Nastasya with impatience and anguish; but she still lingered and would not go away.

“Will you have some tea now?” she asked.

“Later! I want to sleep! Leave me . . .”

He turned convulsively to the wall; Nastasya went out.

VI

But as soon as she went out, he got up, hooked the door, untied the bundle of clothing that Razumikhin had brought earlier and had tied up again himself, and began to dress. Strangely, he seemed suddenly to become perfectly calm; there was none of the earlier half-crazed delirium, nor the panicky fear of that whole recent time. This was the first moment of some strange, sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm intention shone through them. “Today, today! ... ” he muttered to himself. He realized, however, that he was still weak, but emotional tension, so strong in him that it had reached the point of calm, of a fixed idea, gave him strength and self-confidence; he hoped, all the same, that he would not collapse in the street. Having fully dressed, in all new things, he looked at the money lying on the table, reflected, and put it in his pocket. There were twenty-five roubles. He also took all the five-kopeck pieces left as change from the ten roubles Razumikhin had spent on the clothes. Then he quietly unfastened the hook, stepped out of the room, went down the stairs, and peeked through the wide open door into the kitchen: Nastasya was standing with her back to him, bending over the landlady's samovar and blowing on the coals. She did not hear anything. Besides, who could imagine he would leave? In another moment he was in the street.

It was about eight o'clock; the sun was going down. It was as stifling as before, yet he greedily inhaled the stinking, dusty, city-infected air. He began to feel slightly giddy; a sort of wild energy suddenly shone in his inflamed eyes and in his pale and yellow, emaciated face. He did not know and did not think about where he was going; he knew only one thing—that “all this must be ended today, at once, right now; otherwise he would not go back home, because he did not want to live like that. “ Ended how? Ended by what? Of that he had no idea, nor did he want to think about it. He kept driving the thought away; the thought tormented him. He simply felt and knew that everything had to change, one way or another, “no matter how,” he repeated with desperate, fixed self-confidence and resolution.

By old habit, following the usual course of his former walks, he headed straight for the Haymarket. Just before the Haymarket, on the sidewalk in front of a grocery shop, stood a dark-haired young organ-grinder, turning out some quite heartfelt love song. He was accompanying a girl of about fifteen, who stood in front of him on the sidewalk, dressed like a young lady in a crinoline, a little cape, gloves, and a straw hat with a flame-colored feather—all of it old and shabby. She was singing a love song in a cracked but rather pleasant and strong street singer's voice, hoping to get two kopecks from the shop. Raskolnikov stopped alongside two or three listeners, listened for a while, took out a five-kopeck piece, and put it in the girl's hand. She suddenly cut off her song on the highest and most heartfelt note, as with a knife, shouted a curt “Enough!” to the organ-grinder, and they both trudged on to the next shop.

“Do you like street singing?” Raskolnikov suddenly addressed one not too young passer-by, who had been standing with him near the barrel-organ and looked like an idler. The man stared at him wildly and with amazement. “I do,” Raskolnikov went on, looking as if he were not talking about street singing at all, “I like hearing songs to the barrel-organ on a cold, dark, and wet autumn evening—it must be a wet evening—when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces; or, even better, when wet snow is falling, straight down, with no wind— you know?—and the gaslights are shining through it . . .”

“I don't know, sir...Excuse me . . .” the gentleman muttered, frightened both by the question and by Raskolnikov's strange look, and he crossed to the other side of the street.

Raskolnikov went straight on and came to the corner of the Haymarket where the tradesman and the woman, the ones who had been talking with Lizaveta that day, had their stand; but they were not there now. Having recognized the spot, he stopped, looked around, and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who was yawning in the doorway of a miller's shop.

“That tradesman and the woman, his wife, keep a stand here at the corner, eh?”

“All kinds of people keep stands here,” the fellow replied, looking Raskolnikov up and down superciliously.

“What's his name?”

“Whatever he was baptized.”

“Are you from Zaraisk, too? What's your province?”

The fellow gave Raskolnikov another look.

“Ours isn't a province, Your Excellency, it's a district, but the strict one is my brother, not me, so I couldn't say, sir...Therefore I hope you'll be so magnanimous as to forgive me, Your Excellency.”

“Is this a cook-shop, the place upstairs?”

“It's a tavern; they've got billiards, and princesses on hand...oh-la-la!”

Raskolnikov crossed the square. There, on the corner, stood a thick crowd of people, all of them peasants. He made his way into the very thick of them, peering into their faces. For some reason he felt drawn to talk with everyone. But the peasants paid no attention to him; they were all cackling to each other, bunching together in little groups. He stood, thought a moment, then went to the right along the sidewalk, in the direction of V------y. Once past the square, he found himself in an alley.

He often used to take this short alley, which made an elbow and led from the square to Sadovaya. Recently, he had even been drawn to loafing around all these places, when he was feeling sick at heart, so as to make it “all the more sickening.” But now he was not thinking anything as he entered it. A big building there was given over entirely to taverns and other eating and drinking establishments; women came running out of them every other minute, wearing whatever was worn “around the neighborhood”—bareheaded and only in dresses. They crowded in groups at two or three places along the sidewalk, mostly near the basement stairways, where a couple of steps led down to various rather pleasurable establishments. In one of these, at that moment, a clatter and racket were going on for the whole street to hear—the strumming of a guitar, singing, and great merrymaking. A large group of women crowded around the entrance; some were sitting on the steps, others on the sidewalk, the rest stood talking together. A drunken soldier with a cigarette was loafing in the street nearby, swearing loudly; he seemed to want to go in somewhere but had apparently forgotten where. A ragamuffin was swearing at another ragamuffin, and there was a man lying dead drunk in the middle of the street. Raskolnikov stopped near the large group of women. They were talking in husky voices; all of them were wearing cotton dresses, goatskin shoes, and nothing on their heads. Some were over forty, but there were some younger than seventeen; almost every one of them had a black eye.

For some reason he was interested in the singing and all the clatter and racket there, downstairs...Through the shrieks and guffaws, to the accompaniment of the guitar and the thin falsetto of a rollicking song, came the sound of someone desperately dancing, beating time with his heels. He listened intently, gloomily, pensively, bending down at the entrance and peering curiously from the sidewalk into the entryway.

“My soldier-boy so fine and free, What cause have you for beating me!” the singer's thin voice poured out. Raskolnikov wanted terribly to catch the words, as if that were all that mattered to him.

“Why don't I go in?” he thought. “They're laughing loudly! Drunk. Well, suppose I get drunk?”

“Won't you go in, dear master?” one of the women asked in a ringing, not yet quite husky voice. She was young and not even repulsive—she alone of the whole group.

“Well, well, here's a pretty one!” he replied, straightening up and looking at her.

She smiled; the compliment pleased her very much.

“You're a real pretty one yourself,” she said.

“But so skinny!” another observed in a bass voice. “Just checked out of the hospital, or what?”

“Look, they're all generals' daughters, and snub-nosed every nose of them!” a newly arrived peasant suddenly interrupted, tipsy, his coat unbuttoned, and with a slyly laughing mug. “Here's some fun, eh?”

“Go in if you're going!”

“That I will, my sweeties!”

And he tumbled down the steps.

Raskolnikov started to move on.

“Listen, dear master!” the girl called after him.

“What?”

She became embarrassed.

“I'd always be glad to spend some time with you, dear master, but right now I can't seem to settle my conscience on you. Give me six kopecks for a drink, my nice young gentleman!”

Raskolnikov took out what happened into his hand: three five-kopeck pieces.

“Ah, such a kind master!”

“What's your name?”

“Ask for Duklida.”

“Just look at that, will you,” one woman in the group suddenly remarked, shaking her head at Duklida. “I don't know how anyone could ask like that! I think I'd just drop down from conscience alone . . .”

Raskolnikov looked curiously at the one who had spoken. She was a pockmarked wench of about thirty, all covered with bruises, and with a swollen upper lip. She pronounced her judgment calmly and seriously.

“Where was it,” Raskolnikov thought as he walked on, “where was it that I read about a man condemned to death saying or thinking, an hour before his death, that if he had to live somewhere high up on a cliffside, on a ledge so narrow that there was room only for his two feet—and with the abyss, the ocean, eternal darkness, eternal solitude, eternal storm all around him—and had to stay like that, on a square foot of space, an entire lifetime, a thousand years, an eternity—it would be better to live so than to die right now! Only to live, to live, to live! To live, no matter how—only to live!^[60]. . . How true! Lord, how true! Man is a scoundrel! And he's a scoundrel who calls him a scoundrel for that,” he added in a moment.

He came out on another street. “Hah! The 'Crystal Palace'! Razumikhin was talking earlier about the 'Crystal Palace.' Only what was it I wanted to do? Ah, yes, to read! ... Zossimov said he read about it in the newspapers...”

“Do you have the newspapers?” he asked, going into a quite spacious and even orderly tavern with several rooms, all of them rather empty, however. Two or three customers were having tea, and in a farther room a group of some four men sat drinking champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that one of them was Zamyotov, but it was hard to tell from a distance.

“So what if it is!” he thought.

“Will you be having vodka, sir?” the waiter asked.

“Bring me tea. And some newspapers, old ones—say, from the last five days—and I'll leave you a good tip.”

“Right, sir. Here are today's, sir. And some vodka, sir?”

The old newspapers and the tea appeared. Raskolnikov sat down and began searching: “Izler...Izler...Aztecs...Aztecs...Izler...Bartola...Massimo...Aztecs...Izler...pah, the devil! Ah, the short notices: woman falls down stairs . .. tradesman burns up with drink...fire in Peski...fire on the Petersburg side...another fire on the Petersburg side...another fire on the Petersburg side...Izler...Izler...Izler...Izler...Massimo...Ah, here . . .”^[61]

He finally found what he wanted and started reading; the lines danced in front of his eyes, but he nevertheless finished the whole “news item” and greedily began looking in other issues for later additions. His hands trembled with convulsive impatience as he leafed through the pages. Suddenly someone sat down next to him at his table. He looked up—it was Zamyotov, the same Zamyotov, with the same look, with the signet rings, the watch-chains, the part in his black, curly, and pomaded hair, wearing a foppish waistcoat, a somewhat worn jacket, and not very fresh linen. He was cheerful; at least he was smiling cheerfully and good-naturedly. His dark-skinned face was a little flushed from the champagne he had been drinking.

“What! You here?” he began in perplexity, and in a tone suggesting they had known each other for ages. “Razumikhin told me just yesterday that you were still unconscious. How strange! And I was there at your place . . .”

Raskolnikov had known he would come over. He laid the newspapers aside and turned to Zamyotov. There was a smirk on his lips, and in that smirk the trace of some new, irritable impatience.

“I know you were,” he replied, “I heard about it, sir. You looked for my sock...And, you know, Razumikhin's lost his head over you; he says you went with him to Laviza Ivanovna, the one you took such trouble over that time, winking to Lieutenant Gunpowder, and he couldn't understand, remember? Yet one wonders how he could possibly not understand—it was clear enough...eh?”

“And what a rowdy he is!”

“Who, Gunpowder?”

“No, your friend Razumikhin . . .”

“Nice life you've got for yourself, Mr. Zamyotov; a toll-free entry into the most pleasant places! Who was that pouring champagne into you just now?”

“Yes, we were...having a drink...Pouring, really!”

“An honorarium! You profit in all ways!” Raskolnikov laughed. “Never mind, sweet boy, never mind!” he added, slapping Zamyotov on the shoulder. “I'm not saying it out of malice; it's all 'real friendly, for the fun of it,' as your workman said when he was punching Mitka, the one in the old woman's case.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Maybe I know more than you do.”

“You're a strange one, you are...You must still be very sick. You shouldn't have gone out . . .”

“So I seem strange to you?”

“Yes. What's this, you're reading newspapers?”

“Newspapers.”

“There's a lot about fires . . .”

“I'm not reading about fires.” Here he gave Zamyotov a mysterious look; a mocking smile again twisted his lips. “No, not about fires,” he went on, winking at Zamyotov. “And confess it, my dear young man, aren't you terribly anxious to know what I was reading about?”

“Not at all; I just asked. Can't I ask? Why do you keep . . .”

“Listen, you're an educated man, a literary man, eh?”

“I finished the sixth class in gymnasium,” Zamyotov answered with some dignity.

“The sixth class! All, my little sparrow! With a part in his hair and rings on his fingers—a rich man! Pah, what a dear little boy!” Here Raskolnikov dissolved into nervous laughter right in Zamyotov's face. The latter drew back, not really offended, but very much surprised.

“Pah, what a strange fellow!” Zamyotov repeated, very seriously. “I think you're still raving.”

“Raving? Nonsense, my little sparrow! ... So I'm strange, am I? Well, and are you curious about me? Are you curious?”

“I'm curious.”

“Then shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See how many issues I had them drag out for me! Suspicious, eh?”

“So, tell me.”

“Are your ears pricked up?”

“Why pricked up?”

“I'll tell you why later, and now, my dear, I declare to you...no, better: 'I confess'...No, that's not right either: 'I give testimony, and you take it'—that's best! So, I give testimony that I was reading...I was interested in...I was searching...I was looking for . . .” Raskolnikov narrowed his eyes and paused: “I was looking—and that is the reason I came here—for news about the murder of the official's old widow,” he finally uttered, almost in a whisper, bringing his face extremely close to Zamyotov's face. Zamyotov looked straight at him, point-blank, without moving or drawing his face back from Raskolnikov's face. What seemed strangest afterwards to Zamyotov was that their silence lasted for exactly a full minute, and that for exactly a full minute they sat looking at each other that way.

“Well, so what if you were?” he suddenly cried out in perplexity and impatience. “Why should I care? What of it?”

“It's that same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on, still in a whisper, not moving at Zamyotov's exclamation, “the same one, remember, that you started telling about in the office, and I fainted. So, do you understand now?”

“But what do you mean? 'Understand'...what?” said Zamyotov, almost alarmed.

Raskolnikov's frozen and serious expression transformed in an instant, and he suddenly dissolved into the same nervous laughter as shortly before, apparently quite unable to restrain himself. And in a flash he recalled, with the extreme clarity of a sensation, that recent moment when he was standing with the axe behind the door, the hook was jumping up and down, the people outside the door were cursing and trying to force it, and he suddenly wanted to shout to them, curse at them, stick his tongue out, taunt them, and laugh loudly—laugh, laugh, laugh!

“You're either crazy, or . . .” Zamyotov said, and stopped, as if suddenly struck by a thought that flashed unexpectedly through his mind.

“Or? Or what? Well, what? Go on, say it!”

“Nothing!” replied Zamyotov, exasperated. “It's all nonsense!”

Both fell silent. After his unexpected burst into a fit of laughter, Raskolnikov all at once became pensive and sad. He leaned his elbow on the table and propped his head in his hand. He seemed to forget Zamyotov entirely. The silence lasted for quite some time.

“Why don't you drink your tea? It'll get cold,” said Zamyotov.

“Eh? What? Tea?...Maybe so . . .” Raskolnikov took a sip from the cup, put a piece of bread in his mouth, and, looking at Zamyotov, seemed suddenly to recall everything and rouse himself: at the same moment his face resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea.

“There's a lot of this crookedness around nowadays,” said Zamyotov. “Just recently I read in the Moscow Gazette that they caught a whole gang of counterfeiters in Moscow. A whole organization. They were making bank notes.”

“Oh, that was way back! I read about it a month ago,” Raskolnikov replied calmly. “So they're crooks in your opinion?” he added, grinning.

“What else would you call them?”

“Them? They're children, greenhorns, not crooks! A full fifty of them went into such a thing together! How is it possible? Even three would be too many, and even then they'd have to be surer of each other than of themselves! Otherwise, if just one of them gets drunk and spills it out, the whole thing falls through. Greenhorns! They hire unreliable people to change the money in banks: trusting such a job to the first comer! Well, suppose the greenhorns even brought it off, suppose each one got a million changed—well, what then? For the rest of their lives? They have to depend on each other all the rest of their lives! No, better to hang oneself! But they couldn't even get it changed: one of them went to the bank, got five thousand changed, and his hands betrayed him. He counted through four thousand and then took the fifth without counting it, on faith, just to pocket it and run away quickly. So he aroused suspicion. And everything blew up because of one fool! How is it possible?”^[62]

“That his hands betrayed him?” Zamyotov picked up. “No, that is possible, sir. No, I'm absolutely sure it's possible. Sometimes one just can't stand it.”

“A thing like that?”

“And you think you could stand it? No, I couldn't. To risk such horror for a hundred-rouble reward! To take a false bank note, and where?—to a banking house, where they do know a hawk from a handsaw—no, I'd get flustered. Wouldn't you?”

Again Raskolnikov suddenly felt a terrible urge to “stick his tongue out.” Shivers momentarily ran down his spine.

“I wouldn't do it that way,” he began, remotely. “This is how I would get it changed: I'd count the first thousand four times or so, backwards and forwards, examining every note, and then go on to the next thousand; I'd start counting, count half way through, pull out a fifty-rouble note and hold it up to the light, turn it over, and hold it up to the light again—is it false or not? 'I'm afraid,' I'd say, 'I have a relative, and the other day she lost twenty-five roubles that way,' and I'd tell them the story. Then, when I started counting the third thousand—'No, sorry, I think, back there in the second thousand, I counted the seventh hundred incorrectly; I'm not sure'—and I'd leave the third thousand and start over again on the second; and so on for the whole five thousand. And when I was done, I'd pull out a note from the fifth thousand and one from the second, hold them up to the light again, and say in a doubtful voice: 'Change them, please.' And I'd have the clerk in such a lather by then that he'd do anything to be rid of me! When I was finally done with it all, I'd go and open the door—'No, sorry,' and I'd come back again to ask about something, to get some explanation—that's how I would do it!”

“Pah, what awful things you say!” Zamyotov laughed. “Only it's all just talk; in reality you'd be sure to make a slip. Here, let me tell you, not only you and I, but in my opinion even a seasoned, desperate man cannot vouch for himself. But why go far? Take, for example, this old woman who was murdered in our precinct. It looks like the work of a real daredevil; he risked it all in broad daylight, got away only by a miracle—and even so his hands betrayed him: he wasn't able to steal, he couldn't stand it; that's clear from the evidence . . .”

Raskolnikov looked offended.

“Clear! Go and catch him then!” he cried, gloatingly egging Zamyotov on.

“Oh, they'll catch him all right!”

“Who? You? You're going to catch him? You'll run yourselves into the ground! What's the main thing for you—whether the man spends the money or not? First he has no money, then he suddenly starts spending—who else could it be? A child so high could hoodwink you with that if he wanted to!”

“That's precisely it; they all do it that way,” Zamyotov replied. “He kills cunningly, risks his life, and then immediately gets caught in some pot-house. They get caught spending. Not everyone is as cunning as you are. You wouldn't go to a pot-house, naturally?”

Raskolnikov frowned and looked fixedly at Zamyotov.

“It seems I've whetted your appetite. So, you want to know how I'd act in this case, too?” he asked with displeasure.

“Yes, I do,” the other answered firmly and seriously. He had begun to look and sound all too serious.

“Very much?”

“Very much.”

“All right. This is how I would act,” Raskolnikov began, again suddenly bringing his face close to Zamyotov's, again looking point-blank at him, again speaking in a whisper, so that this time Zamyotov even gave a start. “Here's what I would do: I would take the money and the things, and as soon as I left there, immediately, without stopping anywhere, I'd go to some out-of-the-way place where there were only fences and almost no people around—some kitchen garden or the like. There would be a stone in this yard, which I would have picked out beforehand, weighing thirty or forty pounds, somewhere in a corner near the fence, that might have been sitting there since the house was built; I'd lift this stone—of course there would be a shallow hole under it—and put all the money and things into the hole. I'd put them there and replace the stone just the way it had been before, tamp it down with my foot, and go away. And I wouldn't touch it for a year, or two, or three—so, look all you like. Now you see me, and now you don't!”

“You are a madman,” Zamyotov spoke for some reason also almost in a whisper, and for some reason suddenly drew back from Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov's eyes were flashing; he became terribly pale; his upper lip twitched and began to tremble. He leaned as close to Zamyotov as he could and began moving his lips without uttering anything; this went on for half a minute or so; he was aware of what he was doing, but could not stop himself. A terrible word was trembling on his lips, like the hook on that door: another moment and it would jump out; another moment and it would let go; another moment and it would be spoken!

“And what if it was I who killed the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said suddenly—and came to his senses.

Zamyotov looked wildly at him and went white as a sheet. His face twisted into a smile.

“But can it be?” he said, barely audibly.

Raskolnikov looked at him spitefully.

“Admit that you believed it! Right? Am I right?”

“Not at all! Now more than ever I don't!” Zamyotov said hastily.

“Got you at last! The little sparrow's caught! So you did believe it at first, if 'now more than ever you don't'?”

“No, not at all, really!” Zamyotov exclaimed, visibly confused. “Is that why you've been frightening me, so as to lead up to that?”

“You don't believe it, then? And what did you start talking about in my absence, when I left the office that time? And why did Lieutenant Gunpowder interrogate me after I fainted? Hey, you,” he called to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?”

“Thirty kopecks in all, sir,” the waiter answered, running over.

“And here's twenty more for a tip. Look at all this money!” He held the notes out to Zamyotov with a trembling hand. “Red ones, blue ones, twenty-five roubles. Where from? And where did the new clothes come from? You know I didn't have a kopeck! I bet you've already questioned the landlady, eh?...Well, enough! Assez causé!^[63] See you later...with the greatest pleasure! . . .”

He went out all atremble with some wild, hysterical feeling, in which there was at the same time a portion of unbearable delight— yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was distorted, as if after some fit. His fatigue was increasing rapidly. His energy would now be aroused and surge up suddenly, with the first push, the first irritating sensation, and then rapidly grow weaker as the sensation weakened.

Zamyotov, left alone, went on sitting where he was for a long time, pondering. Raskolnikov had unwittingly overturned all his ideas on a certain point, and had finally settled his opinion.

“Ilya Petrovich is a blockhead!” he decided finally.

Raskolnikov had just opened the door to go out when he suddenly bumped into Razumikhin, right on the porch, coming in. Neither one saw the other even a step before, so that they almost bumped heads. They stood for some time looking each other up and down. Razumikhin was greatly amazed, but suddenly wrath, real wrath, flashed menacingly in his eyes.

“So here's where you are!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Ran away from your sick-bed! And I even looked for you under the sofa! We went to the attic! I almost gave Nastasya a beating because of you...And here's where he is! Rodka! What is the meaning of this! Tell the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?”

“It means that I'm sick to death of all of you, and I want to be alone,” Raskolnikov replied calmly.

“Alone? When you still can't walk, when your mug is white as a sheet, and you can barely breathe! Fool! ... What were you doing in the 'Crystal Palace'? Confess immediately!”

“Let me be!” said Raskolnikov, and he tried to pass by. This now drove Razumikhin into a rage: he seized him firmly by the shoulder.

“Let you be? You dare tell me to let you be? And do you know what I'm going to do with you now? I'm going to pick you up, tie you in a knot, carry you home under my arm, and lock you in!”

“Listen, Razumikhin,” Raskolnikov began softly and apparently quite calmly, “can't you see that I don't want your good deeds? And who wants to do good deeds for someone who...spits on them? For someone, finally, who only feels seriously burdened by them? Why did you seek me out at the start of my illness? Maybe I would have been quite happy to die! Didn't I make it sufficiently plain to you today that you are tormenting me, that I am . .. sick of you! Really, why do you want to torment people! I assure you that it all seriously interferes with my recovery, because it keeps me constantly irritated. Didn't Zossimov leave today so as not to irritate me? You leave me, too, for God's sake! And what right do you have, finally, to restrain me by force? Can't you see as I'm speaking now that I'm entirely in my right mind? How, teach me how to implore you, finally, not to pester me with your good deeds! Say I'm ungrateful, say I'm mean, only leave me alone, all of you, for God's sake, leave me alone! Leave me! Leave me!”

He had begun calmly, savoring beforehand all the venom he was going to pour out, but he finished frenzied and breathless, as earlier with Luzhin.

Razumikhin stood, thought, and let his hand fall.

“Go to the devil, then!” he said softly and almost pensively. “Wait!” he suddenly bellowed, as Raskolnikov tried to set off. “Listen to me. I announce to you that you're all, to a man, babblers and braggarts! Some little suffering comes along, and you brood over it like a hen over an egg! Even there you steal from other authors! There isn't a sign of independent life in you! You're made of spermaceti ointment, with whey instead of blood in your veins! I don't believe a one of you! The first thing you do in any circumstances is try not to resemble a human being! Wa-a-ait!” he cried with redoubled fury, seeing that Raskolnikov was making another attempt to leave. “Hear me out! You know I have people coming today for a housewarming party, maybe they've come already, but I left my uncle there—I ran over just now—to receive my guests. So, if you weren't a fool, a banal fool, an utter fool, a foreign translation...you see, Rodya, I admit you're a smart fellow, but you're a fool!—so, if you weren't a fool, you'd be better off spending the evening at my place than going around wearing out your boots for nothing. Since you've already gone out, what's the difference! I'll roll in a soft armchair for you, my landlord has one...A bit of tea, good company...Or else I can put you on the couch—anyway, you'll be lying there with us...Zossimov will be there, too. Will you come?”

“No.”

“R-r-rot!” Razumikhin cried out impatiently. “How can you tell? You can't answer for yourself! Besides, you have no understanding of these things...I've fallen out with people like this a thousand times and gone running back...One gets ashamed—and goes back to the man! So remember, Pochinkov's house, third floor . . .”

“And in the same way, Mr. Razumikhin, you would probably let someone beat you for the pleasure of doing them good.”

“Who, me? I'll twist your nose off just for thinking it! Pochinkov's house, number forty-seven, the official Babushkin's apartment . . .”

“I won't come, Razumikhin!” Raskolnikov turned and started to walk away.

“I bet you will!” Razumikhin called after him. “Otherwise you...otherwise I don't want to know you! Hey, wait! Is Zamyotov in there?”

“He is.”

“You saw him?”

“I did.”

“You spoke?”

“We spoke.”

“What about? Ah, devil take you, don't tell me, then! Pochinkov's, forty-seven, Babushkin's, remember!”

Raskolnikov reached Sadovaya and turned the corner. Razumikhin followed him with his eyes, pondering. Finally he threw up his hands, went into the tavern, but stopped halfway up the stairs.

“Devil take it!” he continued, almost aloud. “He talks sense, but it's as if...still, I'm a fool, too! Don't madmen talk sense? I think that's what Zossimov is afraid of!” He tapped himself on the forehead with his finger. “And what if...no, he shouldn't be allowed to go by himself now! He might drown himself...Ech, I messed that one up! Impossible!” And he ran back outside after Raskolnikov, but the trail was already cold. He spat and with quick steps went back to the “Crystal Palace,” hastening to question Zamyotov.

Raskolnikov walked straight to the ------sky Bridge, stopped in the middle of it, leaned both elbows on the railing, and began to look along. After parting with Razumikhin he became so weak that he had barely been able to get there. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Leaning over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink gleams of the sunset, at the row of houses, dark in the thickening dusk, at one distant window, somewhere in a garret on the left bank, blazing as if aflame when the last ray of sunlight struck it for a moment, at the dark water of the canal—he stood as if peering intently into the water. Finally, red circles began spinning in his eyes, the houses began to sway, the passers-by, the embankments, the carriages—all began spinning and dancing around him. Suddenly he gave a start, perhaps saved from fainting again by a wild and ugly sight. He sensed that someone was standing next to him, to his right, close by; he looked— and saw a woman, tall, wearing a kerchief, with a long, yellow, wasted face and reddish, sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but obviously saw nothing and recognized no one. Suddenly she leaned her right forearm on the parapet, raised her right leg, swung it over the railing, then her left leg, and threw herself into the canal. The dirty water parted, swallowing its victim for a moment, but a minute later the drowning woman floated up and was gently carried downstream, her head and legs in the water, her back up, her skirt to one side and ballooning over the water like a pillow.

“She's drowned herself! Drowned herself!” dozens of voices were crying; people came running, both embankments were strung with spectators, people crowded around Raskolnikov on the bridge, pushing and pressing him from behind.

“Merciful God, it's our Afrosinyushka!” a woman's tearful cry came from somewhere nearby. “Merciful God, save her! Pull her out, dear people!”

“A boat! A boat!” shouts came from the crowd.

But by then there was no need for a boat; a policeman ran down the stairs, threw off his greatcoat and boots, and plunged into the water. It was not much of a task; the stream carried the drowning woman within two yards of the stairs; he seized her clothes with his right hand, with his left managed to get hold of the pole a fellow policeman held out to him, and the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They laid her on the granite slabs of the embankment. She quickly came around, raised herself a little, sat up, and began sneezing and snorting, senselessly wiping off her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing.

“Drank herself cockeyed, my dears, she drank herself cockeyed,” the same woman's voice went on howling, next to Afrosinyushka now. “The other day, too, she went and tried to hang herself; we took her out of the noose. And now I had to go to the store, and I left a girl to keep an eye on her, and it all came to grief! She's a tradeswoman, my dear, like us, we're neighbors, second house from the corner, right here . . .”

People began to disperse; the policemen were still fussing over the nearly drowned woman; someone shouted something about the police station...Raskolnikov looked upon it all with a strange feeling of indifference and detachment. It was disgusting to him. “No, it's vile . .. the water...better not,” he was muttering to himself. “Nothing'll come of it,” he added, “no point in waiting. What's that—the police station?...And why isn't Zamyotov there in his office? The office is open past nine...” He turned his back to the railing and looked around him.

“Well, after all, why not!” he said resolutely, left the bridge, and set off in the direction of the police station. His heart was empty and blank. He did not want to reflect. Even his anguish had gone; and not a trace remained of his former energy, when he had left the house determined to “end it all!” Total apathy had taken its place.

“After all, it's a way out!” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly along the embankment of the canal. “Anyway, I'll end it because I want to...Is it a way out, though? But what's the difference! There'll be a square foot of space—hah! What sort of an end, though? Can it really be the end? Shall I tell them or shall I not tell them? Ah...the devil! Besides, I'm tired; I wish I could lie or sit down somewhere soon! What's most shameful is that it's so stupid! But I spit on that, too. Pah, what stupid things come into one's head . . .”

To get to the police station he had to keep straight on and take the second turn to the left: it was there, two steps away. But having reached the first turn, he stopped, thought, went down the side street, and made a detour through two more streets—perhaps without any purpose, or perhaps to delay for at least another minute and gain time. He walked along looking down. Suddenly it was as if someone whispered something in his ear. He raised his head and saw that he was standing in front of that house, right by the gate. He had not gone there, or even passed by, since that evening.

An irresistible and inexplicable desire drew him on. He went in, passed all the way under the gateway, turned to the first door on the right, and begun going up the familiar stairs to the fourth floor. The narrow and steep stairway was very dark. He stopped on each landing and looked around with curiosity. The entire window frame on the first-floor landing had been taken out: “It wasn't like that then,” he thought. Here was the second-floor apartment where Nikolashka and Mitka had been working then: “Closed and the door has been painted; that must mean it's for rent.” Now it was the third floor...the fourth...”Here!” He was overcome with perplexity: the door to the apartment was wide open, there were people in it, voices could be heard; he had not expected that at all. After a short hesitation, he mounted the last steps and went into the apartment.

It, too, was being redecorated; workmen were there; he seemed to be struck by the fact. He had been imagining for some reason that he would find everything just as he had left it then, perhaps even the corpses in the same places on the floor. Instead, bare walls, no furniture—it was somehow strange! He walked over to the window and sat down on the sill.

There were two workmen, both young fellows, one on the older side, the other much younger. They were hanging fresh wallpaper, white with little purple flowers, in place of the former tattered and torn yellow paper. For some reason Raskolnikov was terribly displeased by this; he looked at the new wallpaper with animosity, as though he were sorry to see everything so changed.

The workmen were obviously late, and were now hastily rolling up their paper in preparation for going home. Raskolnikov's appearance drew almost no notice from them. They were talking about something. Raskolnikov crossed his arms and began to listen.

“So she comes to me in the morning,” the older one was saying to the younger one, “really early, and she's all gussied up. 'What are you doing,' I says, 'sugar-and-spicing in front of me like that?' 'From henceforth, Tit Vasilievich,' she says, 'I want to stay under your complete will.' So that's how it is! And all gussied up, like a magazine, just like a magazine!”

“What's a magazine, pops?” asked the young one. “Pops” was obviously giving him lessons.

“A magazine is pictures, brother, colored pictures, and they get sent here to local tailors, every Saturday, by mail, from abroad, to tell how everybody should dress, the male sex the same as the female. Drawings, I mean. The male sex is shown more in fancy suits, and in the female department, brother, there's such pompadours—give me all you've got and it won't be enough!”

“What you can't find here in Petersburg!” the young one exclaimed enthusiastically. “Except for your old granny, they've got everything!”

“Except for that, brother, there's everything to be found,” the older one concluded didactically.

Raskolnikov stood up and walked into the other room, where the trunk, the bed, and the chest used to be; the room seemed terribly small to him without the furniture. The wallpaper was still the same; the place where the icon-stand had been was sharply outlined on the wallpaper in the corner. He looked around and returned to his window. The older workman was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you want, sir?” he asked, suddenly addressing him.

Instead of answering, Raskolnikov stood up, walked out to the landing, took hold of the bell-pull, and rang. The same bell, the same tinny sound! He rang a second, a third time; he listened and remembered. The former painfully horrible, hideous sensation began to come back to him more clearly, more vividly; he shuddered with each ring, and enjoyed the feeling more and more.

“What do you want? Who are you?” cried the workman, coming out to him. Raskolnikov walked back in the door.

“I want to rent this apartment,” he said. “I'm looking it over.”

“Nobody rents places at night; and besides, you should have come with the caretaker.”

“The floor has been washed; are they going to paint it?” Raskolnikov went on. “Is there any blood?”

“What blood?”

“That old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a whole pool of blood.”

“What sort of man are you?” the workman cried worriedly.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“You want to know?...Let's go to the police, I'll tell you there.”

The workman looked at him in perplexity.

“It's time we left, sir, we're late. Let's go, Alyoshka. We'll have to lock up,” the older workman said.

“Let's go, then!” Raskolnikov replied indifferently, and he walked out first and went slowly down the stairs. “Hey, caretaker!” he cried as he passed under the gateway.

Several people were standing just at the street entrance, gazing at the passers-by: the two caretakers, a woman, a tradesman in a smock, and some others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them.

“What do you want?” one of the caretakers responded.

“Have you been to the police?”

“Just came back. So, what do you want?”

“They're all there?”

“They are.”

“The assistant's there?”

“He was for a while. What do you want?”

Raskolnikov did not answer, but stood beside them, pondering.

“He came to look at the place,” the older workman said, coming up.

“What place?”

“Where we're working. 'Why have you washed the blood up?' he said. 'There was a murder here, and I've come to rent the place.' And he started ringing the bell, all but tore it out. 'Let's go to the police,' he says, 'I'll prove it all there.' Just wouldn't leave off.”

The caretaker scrutinized Raskolnikov, perplexed and frowning.

“But who are you?” he cried, a bit more menacingly.

“I am Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and I live at Shil's house, here in the lane, not far away, apartment number fourteen. Ask the caretaker... he knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this somehow lazily and pensively, not turning, but gazing fixedly at the darkened street.

“Why did you go up there?”

“To look.”

“What's there to look at?”

“Why not just take him to the police?” the tradesman suddenly mixed in, and then fell silent.

Raskolnikov cast a sidelong glance at him over his shoulder, looked at him attentively, and said, as slowly and lazily as before:

“Let's go.”

“Just take him, then!” the encouraged tradesman picked up. “Why did he come about that? What's on his mind, eh?”

“God knows, maybe he's drunk, maybe he's not,” the workman muttered.

“But what do you want?” the caretaker shouted again, beginning to get seriously angry. “Quit pestering us!”

“Scared to go to the police?” Raskolnikov said to him mockingly.

“Why scared? Quit pestering us!”

“Scofflaw!” cried the woman.

“Why go on talking to him?” shouted the other caretaker, a huge man in an unbuttoned coat and with keys on his belt. “Clear out! ... Yes, he's a scofflaw! ... Clear out!”

And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder, he threw him into the street. Raskolnikov nearly went head over heels, but did not fall. He straightened himself up, looked silently at all the spectators, and walked away.

“A weird man,” the workman let fall.

“People turned weird lately,” the woman said.

“We still should've taken him to the police,” the tradesman added.

“No point getting involved,” the big caretaker decided. “He's a scofflaw for sure! You could see he was foisting himself on us, but once you get involved, there's no getting out...Don't we know it!”

“Well now, shall I go or not?” thought Raskolnikov, stopping in the middle of the street, at an intersection, and looking around as if he were waiting for the final word from someone. But no reply came from anywhere; everything was blank and dead, like the stones he was walking on, dead for him, for him alone...Suddenly, in the distance, about two hundred paces away, at the end of the street, in the thickening darkness, he made out a crowd, voices, shouts...In the midst of the crowd stood some carriage...A small light started flickering in the middle of the street. “What's going on?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and went towards the crowd. It was as if he were snatching at anything, and he grinned coldly as he thought of it, because he had firmly decided about the police and knew for certain that now it was all going to end.

VII

In the middle of the street stood a jaunty, high-class carriage, harnessed to a pair of fiery gray horses; there were no passengers, and the coachman, having climbed down from his box, was standing by; the horses were being held by their bridles. A great many people were crowding around, the police in front of them all. One of them was holding a lantern and bending down, directing the light at something on the pavement, just by the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, gasping; the coachman looked bewildered and kept repeating every so often:

“What a shame! Lord, what a shame!”

Raskolnikov pushed his way through as well as he could and finally glimpsed the object of all this bustle and curiosity. A man just run over by the horses was lying on the ground, apparently unconscious, very poorly dressed, but in “gentleman's” clothes, and all covered with blood. Blood was flowing from his face, from his head. His face was all battered, scraped, and mangled. One could see that he had been run over in earnest.

“Saints alive!” wailed the coachman, “how could I help it! If I'd been racing, or if I hadn't hollered to him...but I was driving at a slow, steady pace. Everybody saw it, as true as I'm standing here. A drunk can't see straight, who doesn't know that! ... I saw him crossing the street, reeling, nearly falling over—I shouted once, then again, then a third time, and then I reined in the horses; but he fell right under their feet! Maybe on purpose, or else he was really so drunk...The horses are young, skittish; they reared up, he gave a shout, they took off again...and so we came to grief.”

“That's exactly how it was!” some witness responded from the crowd.

“He did shout, it's true, he shouted three times to him,” another voice responded.

“Three times exactly, everybody heard it!” cried a third.

The coachman, however, was not very distressed or frightened. One could see that the carriage belonged to a wealthy and important owner, who was awaiting its arrival somewhere; how to see to this last circumstance was no small part of the policemen's concern. The trampled man had to be removed to the police station and then to the hospital. No one knew his name.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov pushed ahead and bent down closer. Suddenly the lantern shone brightly on the unfortunate man's face. He recognized him.

“I know him! I know him!” he cried, pushing all the way to the front. “He's an official, a retired official, a titular councillor, Marmeladov! He lives near here, in Kozel's house...A doctor, quickly! Here, I'll pay!” He pulled the money from his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was surprisingly excited.

The police were pleased to have found out who the trampled man was. Raskolnikov gave his own name and address as well, and began doing his utmost to persuade them, as if it were a matter of his own father, to transport the unconscious Marmeladov to his lodgings.

“It's here, three houses away,” he urged, “the house belongs to Kozel, a German, a rich man...He must have been trying to get home just now, drunk...I know him; he's a drunkard...He has a family, a wife, children, there's a daughter. It'll take too long to bring him to the hospital, and I'm sure there's a doctor there in the house! I'll pay, I'll pay...Anyway they'll take care of him, they'll help him at once, otherwise he'll die before he gets to the hospital . . .”

He even managed to slip them something unobserved; it was, however, a clear and lawful case, and in any event help was closer here. The trampled man was picked up and carried; people lent a hand. Kozel's house was about thirty steps away. Raskolnikov walked behind, carefully supporting the head and showing the way.

“This way, this way! Carry him head first up the stairs; turn him around...there! I'll pay, I'll thank you well for it,” he muttered.

Katerina Ivanovna, as soon as she had a free moment, would immediately begin pacing her small room, from window to stove and back, her arms crossed tightly on her chest, talking to herself and coughing. Lately she had begun talking more and more often to her older daughter, the ten-year-old Polenka, who, though she understood little as yet, still understood very well that her mother needed her, and therefore always followed her with her big, intelligent eyes, and used all her guile to pretend that she understood everything. This time Polenka was undressing her little brother, who had not been feeling very well all day, getting him ready for bed. The boy, waiting for her to change his shirt, which was to be washed that same night, was sitting silently on the chair, with a serious mien, straight-backed and motionless, his little legs stretched out in front of him, pressed together, heels to the public and toes apart. He was listening to what his mama was saying to his sister, with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, sitting perfectly still, as all smart little boys ought to do when they are being undressed for bed. The even smaller girl, in complete rags, stood by the screen waiting her turn. The door to the stairs was open, to afford at least some protection from the waves of tobacco smoke that issued from the other rooms and kept sending the poor consumptive woman into long and painful fits of coughing. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner over the past week, and the flushed spots on her cheeks burned even brighter than before.

“You wouldn't believe, you can't even imagine, Polenka,” she was saying, pacing the room, “how great was the gaiety and splendor of our life in papa's house, and how this drunkard has ruined me and will ruin you all! Father had the state rank of colonel^[64] and was nearly a governor by then, he only had one more step to go, so that everyone that called on him used to say, 'Even now, Ivan Mikhailovich, we already regard you as our governor!' When I...hem! ... when I...hem, hem, hem...oh, curse this life!” she exclaimed, coughing up phlegm and clutching her chest. “When I...ah, at the marshal's last ball^[65]... when Princess Bezzemelny saw me—the one who blessed me afterwards when I was marrying your father, Polya—she asked at once: 'Isn't this that nice young lady who danced with a shawl at the graduation?'...That rip should be mended; why don't you take the needle and darn it now, the way I taught you, otherwise tomorrow...hem, hem, hem! ... it'll tear wo-o-orse!” she cried, straining herself. “At that same time, a kammerjunker, Prince Shchegolskoy,^[66] had just come from Petersburg...he danced a mazurka with me, and the very next day wanted to come with a proposal; but I thanked him personally in flattering terms and said that my heart had long belonged to another. That other was your father, Polya; papa was terribly cross with me...Is the water ready? Now, give me the shirt; and the stockings?...Lida,” she turned to the little daughter, “you'll just have to sleep without your shirt tonight, somehow...and lay out your stockings, too...so they can be washed together...Why doesn't that ragtag come home, the drunkard! He's worn his shirt out like some old dustcloth, it's all torn...I could wash it with the rest and not have to suffer two nights in a row! Lord! Hem, hem, hem, hem! Again! What's this?” she cried out, looking at the crowd in the entry-way and the people squeezing into her room with some burden. “What's this? What are they carrying? Lord!”

“Is there somewhere to put him?” the policeman asked, looking around, when the bloodstained and unconscious Marmeladov had already been lugged into the room.

“On the sofa! Lay him out on the sofa, head this way,” Raskolnikov pointed.

“Run over in the street! Drunk!” someone shouted from the entry-way.

Katerina Ivanovna stood all pale, breathing with difficulty. The children were completely frightened. Little Lidochka cried out, rushed to Polenka, threw her arms around her, and began shaking all over.

Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov rushed to Katerina Ivanovna.

“For God's sake, calm yourself, don't be afraid!” he spoke in a quick patter. “He was crossing the street and was run over by a carriage; don't worry, he'll come round; I told them to bring him here...I was here once, you remember...He'll come round, I'll pay!”

“He finally got it!” Katerina Ivanovna cried desperately, and rushed to her husband.

Raskolnikov quickly noted that she was not one of those women who immediately fall into a faint. Instantly there was a pillow under the unfortunate man's head, something no one had thought of yet; Katerina Ivanovna began undressing him, examining him, fussing over him, not losing her presence of mind, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips, and suppressing the cries that were about to burst from her breast.

Raskolnikov meanwhile persuaded someone to run and get a doctor. As it turned out, there was a doctor living two houses away.

“I've sent for a doctor,” he kept saying to Katerina Ivanovna, “don't worry, I'll pay. Is there any water?...And bring a napkin, a towel, something, quickly; we don't know yet what his injuries are...He's been injured, not killed...rest assured...The doctor will say!”

Katerina Ivanovna rushed to the window; there, on a broken-seated chair, in the corner, a big clay bowl full of water had been set up, ready for the nighttime washing of her children's and husband's linen. This nighttime washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna herself, with her own hands, at least twice a week and sometimes more often, for it had reached a point where they no longer had any changes of linen, each member of the family had only one, and Katerina Ivanovna, who could not bear uncleanliness, preferred to wear herself out at night and beyond her strength, while everyone was asleep, so that the laundry would have time to dry on the line by morning and she could give them all clean things, rather than to see dirt in the house. She tried to lift the bowl and bring it over, as Raskolnikov had requested, but almost fell with the burden. But he had already managed to find a towel, and he wet it and began washing Marmeladov's bloodstained face. Katerina Ivanovna stood right there, painfully catching her breath and clutching her chest with her hands. She herself was in need of help. Raskolnikov began to realize that he had perhaps not done well in persuading them to bring the trampled man there. The policeman also stood perplexed.

“Polya!” Katerina Ivanovna cried, “run to Sonya, quickly. If you don't find her there, never mind, tell them that her father has been run over by a carriage and that she should come here at once...as soon as she gets back. Quickly, Polya! Here, put on a kerchief!”

“Run fas' as you can!” the boy suddenly cried from his chair, and, having said it, relapsed into his former silent, straight-backed sitting, wide-eyed, heels together, toes apart.

Meanwhile the room had become so crowded that there was no space for an apple to fall. The police had left, except for one who stayed for a time and tried to chase the public thronging in from the stairs back out to the stairs again. In their stead, almost all of Mrs. Lippewechsel's tenants came pouring from the inner rooms, crowding in the doorway at first, but then flooding into the room itself. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a rage.

“You might at least let him die in peace!” she shouted at the whole crowd. “A fine show you've found for yourselves! With cigarettes!

Hem, hem, hem! Maybe with your hats on, too! ... Really, there's one in a hat...Out! At least have respect for a dead body!”

Coughing stopped her breath, but the tongue-lashing had its effect. Obviously, Katerina Ivanovna even inspired some fear; the tenants, one by one, squeezed back through the door, with that strange feeling of inner satisfaction which can always be observed, even in those who are near and dear, when a sudden disaster befalls their neighbor, and which is to be found in all men, without exception, however sincere their feelings of sympathy and commiseration.

Outside the door, however, voices were raised about the hospital, and how one ought not to disturb people unnecessarily.

“So one ought not to die!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she rushed for the door, to loose a blast of thunder at them, but in the doorway she ran into Mrs. Lippewechsel herself, who had just managed to learn of the accident and came running to re-establish order. She was an extremely cantankerous and disorderly German woman.

“Ach, my God!” she clasped her hands. “Your trunken husband has a horse trampled! To the hospital mit him! I am the landlady!”

“Amalia Ludwigovna! I ask you to consider what you are saying,” Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily. (She always spoke in a haughty tone with the landlady, so that she would “remember her place,” and even now she could not deny herself the pleasure.) “Amalia Ludwigovna...”

“I have told you how-many-times before that you muss never dare say to me Amal Ludwigovna. I am Amal-Ivan!”

“You are not Amal-Ivan, you are Amalia Ludwigovna, and since I am not one of your base flatterers, like Mr. Lebezyatnikov, who is now laughing outside the door” (outside the door there was indeed laughter, and someone cried: “A cat-fight!”), “I shall always address you as Amalia Ludwigovna, though I decidedly fail to understand why you so dislike this appellation. You see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zakharovich; he is dying. I ask you to close this door at once and not allow anyone in. Let him at least die in peace! Otherwise, I assure you, tomorrow your action will be made known to the governor-general himself. The prince knew me as a young girl, and very well remembers Semyon Zakharovich, to whom he has shown favor many times. Everyone knows that Semyon Zakharovich had many friends and protectors, whom he himself abandoned out of noble pride, aware of his unfortunate weakness, but now” (she pointed to Raskolnikov) “we are being helped by a magnanimous young man who has means and connections, and whom Semyon Zakharovich knew as a child, and rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna . . .”

All this was spoken in a rapid patter, faster and faster, but coughing all at once interrupted Katerina Ivanovna's eloquence. At that moment the dying man came to and moaned, and she ran to him. He opened his eyes and, still without recognition or understanding, began peering at Raskolnikov, who was standing over him. He breathed heavily, deeply, rarely; blood oozed from the corners of his mouth; sweat stood out on his forehead. Not recognizing Raskolnikov, he began looking around anxiously. Katerina Ivanovna looked at him sadly but sternly, and tears flowed from her eyes.

“My God! His whole chest is crushed! And the blood, so much blood!” she said in despair. “We must take all his outer clothes off! Turn over a little, Semyon Zakharovich, if you can,” she cried to him.

Marmeladov recognized her.

“A priest!” he said in a hoarse voice.

Katerina Ivanovna went over to the window, leaned her forehead against the window frame, and exclaimed in desperation:

“Oh, curse this life!”

“A priest!” the dying man said again, after a moment's silence.

“They've go-o-one!” Katerina Ivanovna cried at him; he obeyed the cry and fell silent. He was seeking for her with timid, anguished eyes; she went back to him and stood by his head. He calmed down somewhat, but not for long. Soon his eyes rested on little Lidochka (his favorite), who was shaking in the corner as if in a fit and stared at him with her astonished, childishly attentive eyes.

“A...a...” he pointed to her worriedly. He wanted to say something.

“What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna.

“Barefoot! Barefoot!” he muttered, pointing with crazed eyes at the girl's bare little feet.

“Be quiet!” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably. “You know very well why she's barefoot!”

“Thank God, the doctor!” Raskolnikov cried joyfully.

The doctor came in, a trim little old man, a German, looking about him with mistrustful eyes; he went over to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully felt his head, and with Katerina Ivanovna's help unbuttoned his shirt, all soaked with blood, and bared the sick man's chest. His whole chest was torn, mangled, mutilated; several ribs on the right side were broken. On the left side, just over the heart, there was a large, ominous yellowish-black spot, the cruel blow of a hoof. The doctor frowned. The policeman told him that the injured man had been caught in a wheel and dragged, turning, about thirty paces along the pavement.

“It's surprising that he recovered consciousness at all,” the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov.

“What is your opinion?” the latter asked.

“He will die now.”

“There's no hope at all?”

“Not the slightest! He is at his last gasp...Besides, his head is dangerously injured...Hm. I could perhaps let some blood...but...it would be no use. In five or ten minutes he will certainly die.”

“Try letting some blood, then!”

“Perhaps...However, I warn you it will be perfectly useless.”

At that point more steps were heard, the crowd in the entryway parted, and a priest, a gray-haired old man, appeared on the threshold with the Holy Gifts.^[67] A policeman had gone to fetch him while they were still in the street. The doctor immediately gave way to him, and they exchanged meaningful glances. Raskolnikov persuaded the doctor to stay at least for a little while. The doctor shrugged and stayed.

Everyone stepped aside. The confession lasted a very short time. The dying man probably did not understand much of anything; and he could utter only abrupt, inarticulate sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took Lidochka, got the boy down from his chair, went to the corner near the stove, knelt, and made the children kneel in front of her. The little girl went on shaking; but the boy, upright on his bare little knees, raised his hand regularly, making a full sign of the cross, and bowed to the ground, bumping with his forehead, which seemed to give him special pleasure. Katerina Ivanovna was biting her lips and holding back her tears; she, too, was praying, straightening the boy's shirt from time to time, and she managed to throw a kerchief over the girl's bare shoulders, taking it from the top of the chest of drawers as she prayed and without getting up from her knees. Meanwhile, curious people began opening the door from the inner rooms again. And more and more spectators, tenants from all down the stairs, crowded into the entryway, but without crossing the threshold. The whole scene was lighted by just one candle-end.

At that moment Polenka, who had run to fetch her sister, squeezed quickly through the crowd in the entryway. She came in, almost breathless from running hard, took off her kerchief, sought out her mother with her eyes, went to her, and said: “She's coming! I met her in the street!” Her mother pulled her down and made her kneel beside her. Timidly and inaudibly, a girl came in, squeezing through the crowd, and her sudden appearance was strange in that room, in the midst of poverty, rags, death, and despair. She, too, was in rags, a two-penny costume, but adorned in street fashion, to suit the taste and rules established in that special world, with a clearly and shamefully explicit purpose. Sonya stood in the entryway, just at the threshold but not crossing it, with a lost look, unconscious, as it seemed, of everything, forgetting her gaudy silk dress with its long and absurd train, bought at fourth hand and so unseemly here, and her boundless crinoline that blocked the entire doorway, and her light-colored shoes, and the little parasol, useless at night, which she still carried with her, and her absurd round straw hat with its flame-colored feather. From under this hat, cocked at a boyish angle, peered a thin, pale, and frightened little face, mouth open and eyes fixed in terror. Sonya was of small stature, about eighteen years old, thin but quite pretty, blond, and with remarkable blue eyes. She stared at the bed, at the priest; she, too, was breathless from walking quickly. Finally, certain whispered words from the crowd probably reached her. She looked down, took a step over the threshold, and stood in the room, though still just by the door.

Confession and communion were over. Katerina Ivanovna again went up to her husband's bed. The priest withdrew and, as he was leaving, tried to address a few words of admonition and comfort to Katerina Ivanovna.

“And what am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably, pointing to the little ones.

“God is merciful; hope for help from the Almighty,” the priest began.

“Ehh! Merciful, but not to us!”

“That is sinful, madam, sinful,” the priest observed, shaking his head.

“And is this not sinful?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying man.

“Perhaps those who were the inadvertent cause will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss of income...”

“You don't understand!” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, waving her hand. “What is there to compensate? He was drunk; he went and got under the horses himself! And what income? There wasn't any income from him, there was only torment. The drunkard drank up everything. He stole from us, and took it to the pot-house; he wasted their lives and mine in the pot-house! Thank God he's dying! We'll have fewer losses!”

“You would do better to forgive him in the hour of death. Such feelings are a sin, madam, a great sin!”

Katerina Ivanovna was bustling around the sick man, giving him water, wiping the sweat and blood from his head, straightening his pillow, as she talked with the priest, and only turned to him from time to time while doing other things. But now she suddenly fell upon him almost in a frenzy.

“Eh, father! Words, nothing but words! Forgive him! And what if he didn't get run over? He'd come home drunk, wearing his only shirt, all dirty and ragged, and flop down and snore, and I'd be sloshing in the water till dawn, washing his and the children's rags, and then I'd hang them out the window to dry, and as soon as it was dawn, I'd sit down right away to mend them—that's my night! ... So what's all this talk about forgiveness! As if I hadn't forgiven him!”

Deep, terrible coughing interrupted her words. She spat into her handkerchief and thrust it out for the priest to see, holding her other hand to her chest in pain. The handkerchief was all bloody . . .

The priest hung his head and said nothing.

Marmeladov was in his final agony; he would not take his eyes from the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who again bent over him. He kept wanting to say something to her; he tried to begin, moving his tongue with effort and uttering unintelligible words, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, at once shouted at him peremptorily:

“Be quiet! Don't! ... I know what you want to say! . . .” And the sick man fell silent; but at that same moment his wandering eyes rested on the doorway, and he saw Sonya . . .

He had not noticed her until then: she was standing in the corner, in the shadows.

“Who's there? Who's there?” he said suddenly, in a hoarse, breathless voice, all alarmed, in horror motioning with his eyes towards the doorway where his daughter stood, and making an effort to raise himself.

“Lie down! Lie do-o-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna.

But with an unnatural effort he managed to prop himself on one arm. He gazed wildly and fixedly at his daughter for some time, as though he did not recognize her. And indeed he had never seen her in such attire. All at once he recognized her—humiliated, crushed, bedizened, and ashamed, humbly waiting her turn to take leave of her dying father. Infinite suffering showed in his face.

“Sonya! Daughter! Forgive me!” he cried, and tried to hold out his hand to her, but without its support he slipped from the sofa and went crashing face down on the floor; they rushed to pick him up, laid him out again, but by then he was almost gone. Sonya cried out weakly, ran and embraced him, and remained so in that embrace. He died in her arms.

“So he got it!” Katerina Ivanovna cried, looking at her husband's corpse. “Well, what now? How am I going to bury him! And how am I going to feed them tomorrow, all of them?”

Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.

“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your deceased husband told me all about his life and his circumstances...You may be sure that he spoke of you with rapturous respect. Since that evening, when I learned how devoted he was to all of you, and how he respected and loved you especially, Katerina Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, since that evening we became friends...Permit me now...to assist...to pay what is due to my deceased friend. Here are...twenty roubles, I think—and if this can serve to help you, then...I...in short, I'll come again—I'll be sure to come...maybe even tomorrow...Good-bye!”

And he quickly left the room, hastening to squeeze through the crowd and reach the stairs; but in the crowd he suddenly ran into Nikodim Fomich, who had learned of the accident and wished to take a personal hand in the arrangements. They had not seen each other since that scene in the office, but Nikodim Fomich recognized him instantly.

“Ah, it's you?” he asked.

“He's dead,” Raskolnikov answered. “The doctor was here, a priest was here, everything's in order. Don't trouble the poor woman too much, she's consumptive as it is. Cheer her up with something, if you can...You're a kind man, I know . ..” he added with a smirk, looking him straight in the eye.

“But, really, you're all soaked with blood,” Nikodim Fomich remarked, making out by the light of the lantern several fresh spots of blood on Raskolnikov's waistcoat.

“Soaked, yes...I've got blood all over me!” Raskolnikov said, with some peculiar look; then he smiled, nodded his head, and went down the stairs.

He went down slowly, unhurriedly, all in a fever, and filled, though he was not aware of it, with the new, boundless sensation of a sudden influx of full and powerful life. This sensation might be likened to the sensation of a man condemned to death who is suddenly and unexpectedly granted a pardon.^[68] Halfway down he was overtaken by the priest on his way home. Raskolnikov silently let him pass, exchanging wordless bows with him. But as he was going down the last few steps, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him. Someone was running after him. It was Polenka; she was running after him and calling: “Listen! Listen!”

He turned to her. She ran down the last flight and stopped very close to him, just one step higher. A dim light came from the courtyard. Raskolnikov made out the girl's thin but dear little face, smiling and looking at him with childish cheerfulness. She had come running with an errand, which apparently pleased her very much.

“Listen, what is your name?...and also, where do you live?” she asked hurriedly, in a breathless little voice.

He put his two hands on her shoulders and looked at her with something like happiness. It gave him such pleasure to look at her—he did not know why himself.

“Who sent you?”

“My sister Sonya sent me,” the girl replied, smiling even more cheerfully.

“I just knew it was your sister Sonya.”

“Mama sent me, too. When my sister Sonya was sending me, mama also came over and said: 'Run quickly, Polenka!’”

“Do you love your sister Sonya?”

“I love her most of all!” Polenka said with some special firmness, and her smile suddenly became more serious.

“And will you love me?”

Instead of an answer, he saw the girl's little face coming towards him, her full little lips naively puckered to kiss him. Suddenly her arms, thin as matchsticks, held him hard, her head bent to his shoulder, and the girl began crying softly, pressing her face harder and harder against him.

“I'm sorry for papa!” she said after a minute, raising her tear-stained face and wiping away the tears with her hands. “We've had so many misfortunes lately,” she added unexpectedly, with that especially solemn look children try so hard to assume when they suddenly want to talk like “big people.”

“And did papa love you?”

“He loved Lidochka most of all,” she went on, very seriously and no longer smiling, just the way big people speak, “he loved her because she's little, and because she's sick, and he always brought her treats, and us he taught to read, and me he taught grammar and catechism,” she added with dignity, “and mama didn't say anything, but we still knew she liked that, and papa knew it, and mama wants to teach me French, because it's time I got my education.”

“And do you know how to pray?”

“Oh, of course we do, since long ago! I pray to myself, because I'm big now, and Kolya and Lidochka pray out loud with mother; first they recite the 'Hail, Mary' and then another prayer: 'God forgive and bless our sister Sonya,' and then 'God forgive and bless our other papa,' because our old papa died already and this one is the other one, but we pray for that one, too.”

“Polechka, my name is Rodion; pray for me, too, sometimes: 'and for the servant of God, Rodion'—that's all.”

“I'll pray for you all the rest of my life,” the girl said ardently, and suddenly laughed again, rushed to him, and again held him hard.

Raskolnikov told her his name, gave her the address, and promised to come the next day without fail. The girl went away completely delighted with him. It was past ten when he walked out to the street. Five minutes later he was standing on the bridge, in exactly the same spot from which the woman had thrown herself not long before.

“Enough!” he said resolutely and solemnly. “Away with mirages, away with false fears, away with spectres! ... There is life! Was I not alive just now? My life hasn't died with the old crone! May the Lord remember her in His kingdom, and—enough, my dear, it's time to go! Now is the kingdom of reason and light and . .. and will and strength...and now we shall see! Now we shall cross swords!” he added presumptuously, as if addressing some dark force and challenging it. “And I had already consented to live on a square foot of space!

“... I'm very weak at the moment, but...all my illness seems to have gone. And I knew it would when I went out today. By the way, Pochinkov's house is just two steps away. To Razumikhin's now, certainly, even if it weren't two steps away...let him win the bet! ... Let him have his laugh—it's nothing, let him! ... Strength, what's needed is strength; without strength you get nowhere; and strength is acquired by strength—that's something they don't know,” he added proudly and self-confidently, and he left the bridge barely able to move his legs. Pride and self-confidence were growing in him every moment; with each succeeding moment he was no longer the man he had been the moment before. What special thing was it, however, that had so turned him around? He himself did not know; like a man clutching at a straw, he suddenly fancied that he, too, “could live, that there still was life, that his life had not died with the old crone.” It was perhaps a rather hasty conclusion, but he was not thinking of that.

“I did ask her to remember the servant of God, Rodion, however,” suddenly flashed in his head. “Well, but that was...just in case!” he added, and laughed at once at his own schoolboy joke. He was in excellent spirits.

He had no trouble finding Razumikhin; the new tenant of Pochinkov's house was already known, and the caretaker immediately showed him the way. From halfway up the stairs one could already hear the noise and animated conversation of a large gathering. The door to the stairs was wide open; shouts and arguing could be heard. Razumikhin's room was quite big, and about fifteen people were gathered in it. Raskolnikov stopped in the anteroom. There, behind a partition, two of the landlady's serving-girls busied themselves with two big samovars, bottles, plates and platters with pies and hors d'oeuvres brought from the landlady's kitchen. Raskolnikov asked for Razumikhin. He came running out, delighted. One could tell at a glance that he had drunk an unusual amount, and though Razumikhin was almost incapable of getting really drunk, this time the effect was somewhat noticeable.

“Listen,” Raskolnikov hurried, “I only came to tell you that you've won the bet, and that indeed nobody knows what may happen to him. But I can't come in; I'm so weak I'm about to fall over. So, hello and good-bye! Come and see me tomorrow . . .”

“You know what, I'm going to take you home! If you yourself say you're so weak, then . . .”

“What about your guests? Who's that curly one who just peeked out here?”

“Him? Devil knows! Must be some acquaintance of my uncle's, or maybe he came on his own...I'll leave my uncle with them, a most invaluable man, too bad you can't meet him right now. But devil take them all anyway! They've forgotten about me now, and besides, I need some cooling off, because you came just in time, brother: another two minutes and I'd have started a fight in there, by God! They pour out such drivel. . . You can't imagine to what extent a man can finally get himself wrapped up in lies! But why can't you imagine it? Don't we lie ourselves? Let them lie, then; and afterwards they won't lie...Sit down for a minute, I'll get Zossimov.”

Zossimov fell upon Raskolnikov even with a sort of greediness; some special curiosity could be seen in him; soon his face brightened.

“To bed without delay,” he decided, having examined the patient as well as he could, “and take a bit of something for the night. Will you? I've already prepared it...a little powder.”

“Or two, even,” Raskolnikov replied.

The powder was taken at once.

“It will be very good if you go with him,” Zossimov remarked to Razumikhin. “We'll see what may happen tomorrow, but today it's not bad at all: quite a change from this morning. Live and learn . . .”

“You know what Zossimov whispered to me just now, as we were leaving?” Razumikhin blurted out as soon as they stepped into the street. “I'll tell you everything straight out, brother, because they're fools. Zossimov told me to chat you up on the way and get you to chat back, and then tell him, because he's got this idea...that you're...mad, or close to it. Imagine that! First, you're three times smarter than he is; second, if you're not crazy, you'll spit on him having such drivel in his head; and third, this hunk of meat—a surgeon by profession—has now gone crazy over mental illnesses, and what finally turned him around about you was your conversation today with Zamyotov.”

“Zamyotov told you everything?”

“Everything, and it's an excellent thing he did. I now understand it all inside and out; Zamyotov understands it, too...Well, in short, Rodya...the point is...I'm a bit drunk now...but that doesn't matter...the point is that this notion...you understand?...was really hatching in them...you understand? That is, none of them dared to say it aloud, because it's the most absurd drivel, and especially once they'd picked up that house-painter, it all popped and went out forever. But how can they be such fools? I gave Zamyotov a bit of a beating then—that's between us, brother, don't let out even a hint that you know; I've noticed he's touchy; it was at Laviza's—but today, today it all became clear. This Ilya Petrovich, mainly! He took advantage of your fainting in the office that time, but afterwards he felt ashamed himself, that I know...”

Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumikhin was drunk and telling all.

“I fainted that time because it was stuffy and smelled of oil paint,” Raskolnikov said.

“He keeps explaining! And it wasn't only the paint: that inflammation had been coming on for a whole month; Zossimov is here to testify! But how mortified the boy is now, you can't even imagine! 'I'm not worth his little finger!' he says—meaning yours. He occasionally has decent feelings, brother. But the lesson, the lesson today in the 'Crystal Palace,' that tops them all! You really scared him at first, nearly drove him to convulsions! You really almost convinced him again about all that hideous nonsense, and then suddenly—stuck your tongue out at him: 'Take that!' Perfect! Now he's crushed, destroyed! By God, you're an expert; it serves them right! Too bad I wasn't there! He's been waiting terribly for you now. Porfiry also wants to make your acquaintance . . .”

“Ah...him, too...And why have I been put down as mad?”

“Well, not mad, exactly. It seems I've been spouting off too much, brother...You see, it struck him today that you were interested only in just that one point; now it's clear why you were interested; knowing all the circumstances...and how it irritated you then, and got tangled up with your illness...I'm a little drunk, brother, only devil knows about him, he's got some idea in his head...I tell you, he's gone crazy over mental illnesses. But you can spit . . .”

They were silent for half a minute or so.

“Listen, Razumikhin,” Raskolnikov started to say, “I want to tell you straight out: I'm just coming from a dead man's house, some official who died...I gave them all my money...and besides, I was just kissed by a being who, even if I had killed someone, would still...in short, I saw another being there, too...with a flame-colored feather...but I'm getting confused; I'm very weak, hold me up...here's the stairs . . .”

“What is it? What is it?” asked the alarmed Razumikhin.

“I'm a little dizzy, only that's not the point, but I feel so sad, so sad!—like a woman...really! Look, what's that? Look! Look!”

“What?”

“Don't you see? A light in my room, see? Through the crack . . .”

They were standing before the last flight, next to the landlady's door, and looking up one could indeed see that there was a light in Raskolnikov's closet.

“Strange! Nastasya, maybe,” observed Razumikhin.

“She never comes to my room at this hour; besides, she's long been asleep, but...I don't care! Farewell!”

“But what is it? I'll take you up, we'll go in together!”

“I know we'll go in together, but I want to shake your hand here and say farewell to you here. So, give me your hand, and farewell!”

“What's got into you, Rodya?”

“Nothing; let's go; you'll be a witness . . .”

They began climbing the stairs, and the thought flashed through Razumikhin's mind that Zossimov might be right after all. “Eh, I upset him with all my babbling!” he muttered to himself. Suddenly, coming up to the door, they heard voices in the room.

“What's going on here?” Razumikhin cried out.

Raskolnikov took the door first and flung it wide open, flung it open and stood rooted to the threshold.

His mother and sister were sitting on the sofa, and had already been waiting there for an hour and a half. Why was it that he had expected them least of all, and had thought of them least of all, even in spite of the earlier repeated news that they had left, were on their way, would arrive any moment? For the entire hour and a half they had been vying with each other in questioning Nastasya, who was standing before them even now and had managed to tell them the whole story backwards and forwards. They were beside themselves with fear when they heard that “he ran away today,” sick, and, as appeared from the story, certainly delirious. “God, what's become of him!” They both wept, they both endured the agony of the cross during that hour and a half of waiting.

A cry of rapturous joy greeted Raskolnikov's appearance. Both women rushed to him. But he stood like a dead man; a sudden, unbearable awareness struck him like a thunderbolt. And his arms would not rise to embrace them; they could not. His mother and sister hugged him tightly, kissed him, laughed, wept... He took a step, swayed, and collapsed on the floor in a faint.

Alarm, cries of terror, moans...Razumikhin, who was standing on the threshold, flew into the room, took the sick man up in his powerful arms, and in an instant had him lying on the sofa.

“It's nothing, nothing!” he cried to the mother and sister, “he's just fainted, it's all rubbish! The doctor just said he was much better, completely well! Water! See, he's already recovering; see, he's come to! . . .”

And grabbing Dunechka's arm so hard that he almost twisted it, he bent her down to see how “he's already come to.” The mother and sister both looked upon Razumikhin with tenderness and gratitude, as on Providence itself; they had already heard from Nastasya what he had been for their Rodya throughout his illness—this “efficient young man,” as he was referred to that same evening, in an intimate conversation with Dunva, by Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov herself.